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THE 
OVERCOHING KINGDOH 



BY 

MICHAEL, 



IN SEVEN LECTURES ON THE 
BOOK OF REVELATIONS. 



ry^C 






And He shall rule them with a 
Rod of Iron; as the vessels of 
a Potter, shall they be broken 
to shivers, even as I received of 
mv Father.— Rev. 2:27. 



Harrison, So. Dal> 
March, 1899. 



TWO COPIES RECEIVED, 

r "'y of Qongrotti 
Office of fh G 

FEB 10 1900 

Register of Copyright* 




I** 







54230 



Entered according to act of Congress 
in the year 1899, by 

REV. E. R. ALLYX. 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, 
at "Washington. 



SECOND COPY, 






I 



The Foundation Uncovered. 

LECTURE FIRST. 

As the author of these lectures grasps his 
pen to try to unfold to his fellow man, the mys- 
teries of the Book of Revelations, he is aware 
of the responsibility he assumes before an en- 
lightened age. Were it not for a keen impressive 
sense of duty, the work would be left to abler 
hands than his own. He courteously asks the 
considerate attention, rather than the criticism 
and censure of his readers. 

Before proceeding to consider the Book in 
course, distinct from its connection w T ith other 
books of the Bible, we call attention to its im- 
portance as the last of the inspired revelations 
given to man. Its scenes and visions are of 
transcendant importance, to this age and con- 
dition of the world. 

Its revelations are given on the hipothesis 
that the foundation and beginning of a Divine 
Empire had been established in the typical city 
of Jereusalem, which was to obtain universal 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 



local organized bodies under the ministry of the 
various gifts of the Spirit. In order to preserve 
to man his right tc life in the new earth and 
bring his estate into it; into these local bodies, 
and under spiritual ministry and control, joint 
heirship is made the basic principle in the new 
earth to permit mans spiritual cooperation in 
all that relates to the new empire. 

It will occur to us, just here, that any rule 
or empire is responsible for the effect any form 
of civilization may have upon its subjects; 
therefore it is absolutely necessary that a 
spiritual administration should produce a new 
civilization, that would in every way conserve 
the mind and work of the Spirit; and relieve its 
subjects from the effect of a mingling with all 
other forms, while building up that form which 
is spiritual and perfect and will stand forever. 

To give a forecast of the fortunes the new 
kingdom in its peaceful conflict with the cor- 
rupt sceptres of universal rule, and to lay broad 
and deep, in the inspired record for the comfort 
of the faithful, the assurance of its triumph in 
the earth, its now corronated King appears in 
vision to one of the Twelve Founders, who 
under the guidance and mighty sanctions of the 
Holy Ghost, had planted his sceptre and dis- 
closed the eternal foundation of His Empire, in 
the typical city of Jereusalem in the year A D. 
33. 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERER. 



HIS MESSAGE TO HIS SUBJECTS. 

To seven organized bodies of His people, He 
delivers a message showing. His close and con- 
stant inspection of their state and work, under 
His spiritual ministration. 

He appears to the Revelator as the * 'First 
and the last." (first in creation last in redemp- 
tion.) The first begotten from the dead, "The 
Prince of the Kings of the Earth.'" 

His majesty distinguishes him as a victor, 
able to fulfill His promises, and execute his 
threatenings,. We may apply the lesson briefly, 
Loyalty is the condition of heirship. We sug- 
gest that the number seven, is indicative of 
completeness here, as in other places, and in 
this instance covers the ground of danger, and 
extent of reward. 

One of the rewards offered was that He 
would give them power over the nations, and 
they should rule them with a rod of iron. 
That as the vessels of a potter, should they be 
broken into shivers, even as He received His 
Father. 

If the domain of anv nation was inter^ 
spersed with local bodies vested with primitive 
gifts of the Spirit, and cooperating under joint 
heirship, in building their own civilization and 
maintaining their oWn institutions, and leaving 
out evil agencies which the world tolerates; 
that nation, it might be said was shivered, 



8 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 

However much we may admire human rule* 
it never can deliver man from his mightiest foes 
of suffering disease, and death, nor from being 
exposed to poverty, nor from being the victim 
of coveteousness and greed. Among all forms 
of rule there is but one that is pure and great. 

The author will here meet the objection 
that the position assumed is materialistic, by 
replying that any finished work by spiritual 
agencies is perfect, and that God's work is per- 
fect and complete in any part of His creation. 

We are living eighteen centuries nearer the 
time when every eye shall see Him, and all the 
kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him, 
than when this Revelation was written; and! 
time the great producer and disposer of events 
is leaving its record for our admonition. 

From our standpoint, many things relating 
to the Kingdom have had their fulfillment and 
their work has relegated their claims to the 
past. We may note the rise and reign of anti- 
Christ and the breaking of its power to con- 
sume it to the end. The man of sin must be 
revealed and we have had, and doubtless are 
having his revelation. Both the world and the 
church must learn the great lesson, that with- 
out the Christ His people can do nothing; and 
that He walks in the midst of the Seven Golden 
Candle Sticks both to admonish and reward 
them. Anti Christ took time to acquire domin- 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 



ion or supremacy, to effect complete coopera- 
tion with the scarlet colored beast of John's 
vision. So we must give the Kingdom of Christ 
time to emerge from its wilderness of obscurit}^ 
and afflicted state. 

We note that the Kingdom must have had 
its introduction to the world or there could 
have been no opposition of opposing powers, 
that could have been designated anti Christ, 
But the light Christ gave the world is fast 
dispelling the darkness, produced by his fading 
power, and the end of his sway is approaching. 
"'When the Kingdom and Dominion, and the 
greatness of the Kingdom under the whole 
Heaven, shall be given to the people of the 
saints of the most high, and all dominions shall 
serve and obey Him. M — ^Dan. 7:27. 

The time seems long, and the overcoming 
Kingdom ought to be here. The bride ought 
to be making herself read y* The mass of man- 
kind seems to have a vague uncertainty as to 
what it is, and how to find it. But it is to be 
presumed that all uncertainty will vanish be- 
fore its sceptre w r hen its power again challenges 
an enlightened age. 

It does not seem presumption to say that 
what it was at its founding, it is now. The 
Kingdom is the body of Christ and cannot 
change unless He changes. 



10 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED, 

He never set up any spurious church and 
called it his Kingdom, nor would the righteous 
God have approved it with the gift of His 
spirit. 

When the sceptre finds subjects who have 
light and faith enough to come clearly under its 
sway, and within its conditions, the coopera : 
tion of the corronated Christ will not be want- 
ing. It never failed to fill his covenant and 
never will, as long as there is a soul it cans 
redeem. It must be now what it was at its 
founding, or it perished in the wilderness, where 
it w-as nourished for a time, times, and a half,, 
from the face of the serpent. But it was rein- 
forced by a host of overcoming heirs, who loved 
not their lives even unto death, and who will 
share the reign of the saints. The Kingdom 
had its purpose and must have its essentials, 
that constitute its potency and pomer, and if 
they are wanting the work of building His 
empire cannot go on. If a false light is exhibit- 
ed he removes the candlestick. 

Let us look at its founding and examine its 
foundation; time A. D, 33; place Jerusalem, the 
city of the great kings; occasion, Pentecost, a 
feast of weeks; attendants, representatives of 
all nations under the heaven; authorities, 
twelve living witnesses of His life, ministry, 
doctrine, miracles, death, resurection and ascen- 
tion, chosen before, and instructed for their 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 11 

work. For the purpose of conveying divine 
authority the Holy Ghost came with the sound 
of a rushing mighty wind and filled the place 
where they were sitting. They were filled with 
the spirit. Cloven tongues like as of fire sat 
upon each of them, and they delivered the 

Proclamation of His Kingdom in the language 
of all the different nations present. 

Two distinct agencies in distinct depart- 
ments of His kingdom, belong to the advent of 
the spirit, in its work through the Apostolic 
commission. 

The first work was to proclaim the corron- 
ation of Christ, the terms or process of adop- 
tion and the gift of the spirit. 

The second work to be done, was to estab- 
lish in the earth the divine order, unity, and 
cooperation of the adopted subjects of His 
kingdom under the guidance and ministry of 
the Spirit, 

The first conveys His authority, and witness 
of the Spirit to the world. 

The second establishes the relation of son- 
ship, brotherhood, unity, cooperation, and the 
righteous character of the citizenship in His 
kingdom. 

A failure to recognize these two distinct 
offices of the divine authority, leaves us entirely 
on the sea of congecture, as to what constitutes 



12 THE FOUNDATION UKCOVE&El). 

the complete foundation of apostles ancf 
prophets, with Christ as its chief corner stone. 

One fact ought to impress all minds with 
the sense of the highest responsibility here; and 
that is that the kingdom thus founded wa» 
vested with overcoming power, and it was this 
power that stamped the sceptre of Christ with 
both the divinity and humanity of his nature, 
and justified all that was done to create a like 
harmony in the relations of His body. 

Before leaving the foundation let us examine 
the building which has been "Builded together 
for a habitation of God through the Spirit/ r 
and prepared to "grow into a holy temple in 
the Lord. " 

All that believed were together. They had 
all obeyed the same law of adoption, and re- 
ceived the same spirit. They were of one heart, 
and of one soul They enjoyed earth 's blessings 
in gladness of heart; none said that ought of 
the things he possesed were his own. 

They brought their possessions with them 
and turned all over to the disposition of divine 
authority. 

They continued steadfastly in the apostles 
doctrine; fellowship breaking bread and prayers. 
We have in this foundation all that is required 
to the founding of a new and spiritual empire,, 
and if we invoke its guidance and agency in 
serving our king we must take on such relations 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 13 

to the purpose, nature and work of the sceptre, 
as will bring ourselves and our work and 
our powers into coven rat relation w r ith our 
Lord. 

The authority here revealed and work done, 
cannot be disregarded by nations or individuals. 
It is God*s work and cannot be repealed, chang- 
ed or disobeyed. It would involve disloyalty 
to the King. Time, place, events, with the 
awful sanctions which accompany its advent, 
all distinguish it as the sceptre over all nations. 

What it demanded was obeyed then and 
must be now. God enfored it with his judge- 
ments then, and will enforce it as long as it has 
a foe left. 

That sceptre demanded its sway in all 
things in the hearts, lives and works of all men. 
It convinced and convicted men that Christ was 
Lord of all. It demanded repentance and they 
repented. It demanded baptism and thousands 
were baptised. It demanded separation in 
order to unity and cooperation, and all that 
believed were together. It demanded unity of 
soul and purpose and all were of one heart, and 
of one soul. It demanded cessation of the right 
to individual monopoly of earthly possessions 
and all that had them sold them and laid the 
money at the apostles feet. It demanded renun- 
ciation of human selfishness and none said that 
ought of the things he possessed were his own. 



14 f HK FOUFDATION CNCOVE&KD, 

It demanded steadfast allegiance f and they con- 
tinued steadfast in the apostles teaching. 

They were promised the gift of the Holy 
Ghost and they received it. They were promis- 
ed the presence of the King by Hig Spirit and 
they had it. 

Here then, is the living foundation of the 
living kingdom of the living Christ. It har- 
monizes with Himself, with all He had taught, 
with all that He had done, with all that He 
had prayed for. It fulfilled God's promise, Jesus * 
mission, man's need, and Satan's overthrow. 
It will overturn Babylon, renew the earth and 
stand forever. For its rejection Jerusalem wag 
destroyed and the nation of the Jews wiped out 
as a nation; for disobeying it Annanias and 
Sappira were stricken dead. All elements in 
nature obeyed its King. Prophets searched 
diligently for its coming glory, and none but 
Satan and corrupt earthly powers, drunken 
with greed and the love of vain glory will be 
angry at its triumph. 

Both the prophecies and promises indicate 
that power was to attend the subjects of the 
divine kingdom in the work and conflict of its 
conquest. 

Our Lord gave the seventy/ power over 
unclean spirits, to heal the sick, cleanse the 
lepers and raise the dead; and when they re- 
ported to Him that even devils were subject to 



>TiiE FOUNDATION tTNeo^Ektek. 15 

them through His name, He said; "I beheld 
Satan as lightning fall from heaven/' A bold 
acclamation of a Conquerer, because His sub- 
jects clothed with power could dethrone the 
Devil. If the sceptre of Christ can undo what 
Saton does, then Satan is vanquished and his 
kingdom falls, "t walk in the midst of the 
seven golden Candle sticks, an ever living Christ 
in the midst of an ever living kingdom. " We 
suggest that Christ intended that in his king- 
dom the world should find salvation for soul 
and body. Healing of body, healing of mind, 
and access to the Tree of Life, which is for the 
healing of the nations. 

Let us pause a moment and reflect. Jesus 
Christ and a loving subject of his kingdom > 
both one, and the suffering member of his body* 
Cannot have the healing virtues of the Great 
Physician, when attacked by pain and sufferings 
from an inherited weakness of body. Paith in 
Jesus must say he can. Unbelief, even in the 
church doubtless would say no. But thank 
God the unbelief of an unbeliever* cannot reach 
either the power or willingness of the living 
Christ. 

In sincerity and charity we ask, was liot the 
kingdom of our Lord set up under the dispensa- 
tion of the Holy Spirit? And must it not re-^ 
main under that dispensation until it is dis s 
placed by one more potent? 



16 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 

Does the agency of the mighty and eternal 
spirit, of the living God, leave a redeemed man 
or woman, to the sole dependance on human 
skill, and the agency of poisonous drugs, to 
prolong a life that may be of more value to God 
and man than all the pride and skill of human 
bias? If the kingdom of our blessed Lord has 
in it any power of recovery and restitution for 
our suffering, corrupted, enlightened age, in His 
name let us bring it into relief. 

One visitation of His divine witness to our 
loyalty and conformity to the divine will and 
purpose of our Lord, is worth a thousand con- 
ctures, opinions, theories or professions. 

The voice is sounding in our ear today: 
"Fear not little flock, it is your Father's good 
pleasure to give you the kingdom/ ' The reality 
and depth of that pleasure is unquestioned, but 
where is the flock whose complete possession of 
the sceptre, bears witness to the giving. 

Does it not seem clear to us that when 
Christ fails to clothe His people with the very 
substance of His promises, that He would be 
with them to the end; without the cooperation 
of His spiritual power, His sceptre in the hands 
of men is weaker than that of his foes? 

It is clear that if our Lord by the finger of 
God could cast out devils, the kingdom has 
come to us, but why have we not its primitive 
witness that it has come?' The author knows 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOYERER. 17 

of no reason, but that we are not maintaining 
its distinctive order, and cannot show to a 
corrupt age the beauty* purity and power of its 
divine civilization. 

The Overcoming Kingdom must be heralded 
by its own Divine Proclamation. 

I tremble when I read Paul: 

"Though we, or an angel from heaven, 
preach any other gospel than that we have 
preached unto you let him be accursed. For I 
never received it from man neither was I taught 
it but by revelation of Jesus Christ. " 

There can be no danger greater, or mistake 
more fatal, than for an empire to authorize or 
send out, an unqualified or false embassador; 
and it is our glorv and safetv, that God has 
kept his own record of the founding of the 
kingdom of His Son, and that it stands squarely 
on its own divine foundation. 

But it is no wonder that God does not bear 
witness to all the false, conflicting, contradic- 
tory reports, the oposition has received about 
it and the nature of its authority. Even its 
friends have in their zeal mutilated the divine 
standard, until neither the world nor ourselves 
are able to recognize it, from their report of it. 
Opinion, philosophy, theory, feeling, experience 
and even success and failure, have all been em^ 
ployed as its witnesses, 



18 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 



If the Proclamation of Emancipation issued 
by the martyred Lincoln, had been treated by 
this nation as the church and the world ha*s 
treated the divine proclamation of the Prince of 
the Kings of the Earth, the black race might 
still have been in slavery. Though we cannot 
exactly define what effect such a mistake might 
have had upon our nation; it is easy to see and 
clear to understand what effect the mutilation 
of the authority of Christ has had upon the 
spirituality, unity, cooperation, and civilisation 
of the empire of the corronated Christ, 

Where then does the kingdom of Christ get 
its proclamation? Prom the kingdom itself. 
Repeat the authority of the King in all it com- 
manded, in all it promised, in all it done. Pro- 
claim the kingdom in all its completeness and 
qrder. It is His proclamation to all nations; 
why leave out anything pertaining to it? If we 
think it contains too much dare we modify it? 
It is a divine foundation. Will we take any of 
the stones out of it? It is perfect. Will we mar 
it? If we do we intercept its purpose, forfeit 
its promises, incur the displeasure of the King 
and mislead our fellow men. 

The writer has long stifled the conviction 
that the kingdom of Christ was itself a com- 
plete Christian cooperation, and that all of its 
work, institutions, and achievements, should be 
sanctified by His will and be carried on in His 



THK FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 19 

name. But today disclaims any iaith in cor- 
rupt earthly power to establish, conduct, or 
furnish such cooperation, or to exhibit its pure 
civilization. It is not their province and 
wholly beyond their power. 

The extreme individualism of this nineteenth 
-century civilization, never did obtain in any 
rule to which God gave his sanction. Its as- 
sumption of right is antagonistic to the equili- 
brium of a rule for all. It is a breeder of eov~ 
etousness and selfishness and Its power of self 
'laudation, unfits man to love his neighbor as 
himself, much less to esteem his brother, more 
■highly than himself It is a promoter of dis- 
Jionesty, injustice and crime. Principle, con- 
science and purity are all sacrificed on its alter; 
and the road to wealth and distinction is paved 
with skeletons that might have reflected the 
image of Christ. The power of self control must 
be regained by man before he is fit to be an 
empire in himself or is made a king and priest 
unto God in things that are perfect. 

The dependance of the church for its industrial 
opportunities and social standards, has helped 
.amazingly to whitewash a corrupt civilization, 
and to a greater extent has clothed it with the 
livery of heaven in the popular mind. From the 
standpoint of prudence and spiritual economy, 
have a geographical instead of an invisible line. 
Demonstrate that there is one institution that 



20 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 

can exist without the saloon, the gambling den, 
the variety theater, the sweat shop, the secret 
clan, or even the poisonous viands of a world's 
patented drugs. 

The world is ripe for an institution that can 
• discern between the good and the bad, between 
the useful and the needless, between economy 
and worthless extravagance, between comfort 
and security, and mere pompous vanity and 
display. The divine kingdom has the right 
poise before an enlightened age, but it is not the 
religio-world mixture of today. If the 
kingdom of Christ is not constructed to acquire 
domain, how will he attain possession of the 
uttermost parts of the earth? 

One of God's covenant promises' to Isreal 
was that if they maintained their separateness, 
He would abundantly bless them in their tem- 
poral affairs. Without considering its typical 
application, we enquire, why not give His Son 
the benefit of this opportunity to bless His king- 
dom, without directly building up Babylon, and 
aiding the Devil with his seductive institutions? 

We would rather see one single county con- 
secrated to Christ, than vote the prohibition 
ticket or any other ticket, or than send a reli- 
gious petition to congress. It is a piteous sight 
to see whole regiments of the heirs of high 
heaven bending low before corrupt law and 
custom, and beseeching Satan to draw back his> 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 21 

hidra head, when Christ by a divine constitu- 
tion has given them the power through cooper- 
ation, to shut him and his agencies out of their 
domain and communion, 

I must protest Christ never intended His 
subjects should serve these invasions in pursuit 
of home or bread; but by seeking first His king- 
dom and its righteousness they would inherit 
all they needed. 

Before God destroyed the Antideluveans He 
got Noah into the ark. Before he destroyed 
Sodom He sent Lot out of it. Before He pun- 
ished the Egyptians He got the Israelites beyond 
their border. Before literal Babylon was over- 
thrown He took the Children of Israel back to 
their Canaan, and before mystical Babylon falls 
His people must come out of her to be saved 
from her sins and plagues We suggest the New 
Jerusalem ought to be the proper place for them 
to come. 

Do we ever think how exhaustive of our 
strength, physical and moral, this diversion 
from pure spiritual ends and aims of the toil 
wealth, spiritual influence and power, this 
indiscriminate mingling becomes. Is there 
nothing better than this for a redeemed race? 

Just prior to the time Jesus gave His mes- 
sage to the churches, He gave a clear demon- 
stration of His authority to the nations. The 
import of the event of Israel's overthrow is 



22 THls FOUNDATION UNCOVERED; 



that the stone their builders rejected,, had be- 
ebtnfe'tbe head of the corner and that all power 
in heaven and earth had been given him. 

The Jews as a nation rejected? the authority 
of the Christ over all nations, and the fate of 
that n&tk>n ; stands today as a signal warning 
to all nations, of the folly of building on any 
other foundation than the authority of the 
corronated Christ. 

Have we carefully noted' the reason why 
they stumbled? Certainly it was their untaste- 
fulness for the loveliness, and meekness, and 
purity of Bis character, and that of his sceptre. 
But to us the reproof comes with equal force. 
With a glimpse at Him our affinity for the rule 
or custom that accords the same right to evil 
agencies, as it does to justice and purity 7 must 
weaken. Had the sceptre contained less it 
would have misrepresented Christ, for before 
His corronation He had proclaimed and en- 
forced upon His followers all it contained. 
44 He that forsaketh not all that he hath cannot 
be my disciple. 57 Now hardly (with what dif- 
ficulty) shall they that have riches enter the 
kingdom of heaven. Customs change condi- 
tions. Today they would be accorded the right 
to come in and keep their millions and flattered 
to keep them in. 

It is enough for the servant that he be as« 
his Lord. We need to think of His humbling 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERER. 23 

Himself and becoming obedient — even to the 
death of the cross. Think of the riches He ex- 
changed for poverty, that we through His 
poverty might become rich. 

And then seek to evade the very means and 
measures He has employed to secure our exalt- 
ation with Him in His kingdom. The highest 
province of the wealth of this world, is its use 
for the good of all. Its diversion from this high 
purpose, its misappropriation to needless and 
bad ends is wrong, and that Christ relieved His 
people of the temptation which unrestrained 
human ambition always has incured, is a wise 
provision and a blessing. 

That which responds to the energy and 
industry of man, may become a mighty agent 
and factor in his spiritual recovery from the law 
of sin and death, or it may act like an immense 
weight upon his nature to hold hold him in 
carnalty and servitude, to a love which is the 
root of all evil. 

We may contrast the wisdom of a law T of 
joint heirship under spiritual administration, 
with the principle of unrestrained natural right, 
with the scope it gives to an unholy ambition, 
and find in the latter our world's long record of 
strife, war, subugation, slavery, murder, crime, 
degredation and suffering. In the former we 
have an infalible arbitrer. All questions of right 
are constitutionally settled. The abundance of 



24 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERER. 

all is far greater and more available, than that 
which is consumed in the smoke of battle, swal- 
lowed in the thirst for liquid fire, or lavished on 
the alter of human law, in the fruitless task of 
administering justice. In prophetic vision we 
mav look forward on the sea of human strife 
when this iron rule of the divine sceptre has 
banished envy and discord, when nations learn 
war no more, and when swords become plow 
shares, and spears are made pruning hooks, ^ 
and man shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's 
holy mountain. May we not hasten the day 
by bringing God's building on to His founda- 
tion, that its light may be like a city set on a 

bill. 

Once more from our Patmos we glance back 
at the city of the great King, not to speak of its 
fall, but to examine its history while it yet 
entertained the witness and order of the new 
kingdom. They had been admonished that 
signs would take place, and fearful sights would 
be seen, and that high heaven would lend its 
warning to convince them of their folly. 

The evidence of profane history is more 
credible with some men than the inspired record. 
Josephus their historian and the commander of 
their army in the defense of their city, testifies: 
"He states that a fiery sword in the character 
of a comet, hung over the city for a whole year.'' 



THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 25 

That an extraordinar}^ light appeared about 
the alter in the temple at the ninth hour of the 
night, making it as light as dav. . That the 
massive gate of the interior eastern side of the 
temple, composed of solid brass, and of immense 
weight, requiring the strength of twenty men 
to make it fast, and secured with iron bolts, 
opened at the tifth hour of the night without 
human assistance, and was with great difficulty 
again closed. 

That before the setting of the sun the ap- 
pearance of chariots and armed men were seen 
in the air; in various places in the country, and 
passing around over the city. 

The priests at the feast of Pentecost 
while employed in the duties of their office, were 
warned by a voice uttering distinctly the words, 
"let us begone; depart henCe," 

A prophet appeared in Jerusalem whp con- 
tinued for the space of more than three years 
to pronounce in a most earnest manner the 
words, "Woe to Jerusalem, to its temple, to the 
nation at large." And though punished often 
and with such severity that his bones were laid 
bare with the scourge; he neither w r ept, suppli- 
cated, nor protested; but between the strokes 
repeated his exclamation of woe to the city, 
until the siege was laid, and when upon the wall 
he was killed bv a stone thrown from an engine. 



26 THE FOUNDATION UNCOVERED. 

The import of all these events, together with 
the overthrow of that nation point unerringly 
to the advent of a new authority, and a new 
order in the earth, the character and work of 
which will be more clearly seen in succeeding 
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ABRAHAMIC COVENANT 
CONFIRMED BY GODS OATH. 



The Two Witnesses, 



LECTURE SECOND. 



The Messenger of the Covenant. 

•'Of the increase of his government and 
peace there shallbc no end, upon the throne 
of David and uponhis kingdom to order 
it, and establish it, with judgement and with 
justice, from henceforth even forever. The 
zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this." 
— Isa 9-7. 

That 'The Prince of the Kings of the earth " 
will perfectly execute any covenant ever ratified 
by God no one will doubt who believes He is the 
Son of God. He will in no way displace or 
annul the will of God or mar his authority. 

Neither our Lord nor the Spirit that came 
in His name never exceeded the divine will in 
anything either taught, prophesied or done. It 
will be our effort to show clearly what consti- 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 29 

tutes the covenant under w r hich his divine 
sceptre, is fashioned and wielded, and why the 
ordering of His kingdom is what we have found 
it to be. For this purpose let us look for His 
authority in its founding and order. He had 
said to the apostles, "I give unto you the keys" 
—not key but keys— ^"of the kingdom of heaven, 
and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall 
be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. " 

What was to be done that would be bind- 
ing between heaven and earth? The office of 
Christ as mediator in heaven and ruler in the 
earth and the terms of His mediation and the 
nature and character of His rule had to be 
established and proclaimed to all nations. 

What had to be released? The authority 
God had given Moses the type of Christ had to 
be released, in order to give way for the sacrifice 
and law of Christ to become the arbitrer be- 
tween God and all nations. Nothing but 
heaven's key, the Holy Ghost, could do this. 
Moses got his authority from a burning moun- 
tain, and its fundamental law was written on 
tables of stone he had hewn. But heaven had 
now established in the earth that authority 
which is cut out of the mountain without hands 
which must become "great and fill the whole 
earth/' God is able to turn and overturn to 
make way for its triumph, 



30 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

The dispensation by Moses regulated and 
established the relations of the people with God 
and with each other. 

The dispensation by Christ regulates and 
establishes the relations of the people with God 
and with each other. Either is not a dispensa- 
tion if they do not do both, It was dangerous 
to slight or trifle with the authority of Moses, 
and more dangerous to slight or trifle with the 
authority of Christ, for a greater than Moses 
is here. 

The authority of high heaven never did, nor 
never will do any superfluous work. Divine 
authority is always exemplary, as in our Lord's 
baptism, institution of the supper, the washing 
of the disciples' feet; in fact His whole life is an 
example of what a restored humanity may 
become, but it cannot be attained simply by 
grace alone without the iron rule of His sceptre 
to eradicate from man's nature its own selfish- 
ness, and to remove from his spiritual life and 
its affinities the cause of its growth and power. 
That which makes the world what it is must 
have the same effect upon the church if it is not 
removed from its communion. 

If we could get the scales from our eyes 
which world systems and world customs and 
world standards have glazed over them we 
would see that a dispensation that does not 
establish man's relation with man and adjust 



"THE TWO WITNESSES. 31 

their rights so as to create a perfect brother- 
hood, could never lay claim to divine perfection. 
How could men become joint heirs with Christ 
and not become joint heir with his fellow man 
m the things which God has created? Does 
God's creation belong to God? If so could He 
make a company of worthy people his equal 
joint heirs and then recognize custom or law 
that would give to one of them the right and 
privilege of owning a whole continent or even a 
single state? That is just the principle Satan 
used in getting control of the kingdoms of this 
world, and joint heirship is just the principle 
Christ adopted to destroy all title He had to 
any part of it. Are w^e not forced to rely upon 
the power of the spirit and the truth for the 
renewing of our minds and purifying of our lives 
and hearts? If so are we to believe that the 
Spirit has left God's people a prey to that 
which has driven more people away from God 
than the truth has won to Him? 

"And The Lord whom ve seek shall sud- 
dently come to His temple even the Messenger 
of the Covenant whom ye delight in. Behold 
He shall come saith The Lord but who shall 
abide the day of His coming? Who shall stand 
when He appeareth? For He is like a refiners 
fire and a Fuller's soap. And I will come near 
to you in judgement, I will be a swift witness 
against the sorcerers, adulterers, false swearers 



32 THE two witnesses; 

and against them that oppress the hireling in 
his wages, the widow and the fatherless and 
them that turn aside the stranger from his right 
and fear not me saith the Lord. Mai. 3 — 1— 5." 

Our Lord was the fulfillment of many prom- 
ises and also of many prophecies. As the messen- 
ger of God's Covenant He came to lay in the 
earth, the great purpose of God's eternal plan, 
as the one sacrifice He entered into death once 
for all and "forever sat down on the right hand 
of the Majesty on high from thence forth expect- 
ing until His enemies be made His foot stool. ' r 
For He must reign till He hath put all enemies 
under His feet. So His septre must now be lift- 
ed over the nations of the earth, demanding 
and inviting loyalty and cooperation in enlight- 
ening and redeeming man. 

If the law of Christ did not inaugurate an 
operative plan of righteoussness specifically for 
His people, that would be a witness against 
sin and injustice. How does he expect His peo- 
ple to be practically righteous or exhibit the di- 
vine measure or standard? There is such a 
thing as begging our hope from Christ, and tak- 
ing our standard from the world. There has 
been to much inviting and exhorting and con- 
doling, and not enough building; too much pro- 
fessing and not enough living and being. We 
had better risk one living example of the spirit 
of God in defending and establishing righteous- 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 33 

ness, like the one which established joint heir- 
ship and spiritual cooperation at Jerusalem, 
than all the human opinions in the world. 
We are living and building wide of our privilege 
and sadly at variance with the message or tes- 
timony of this Messenger of the Covenant. 
There seems to be no visible distinct line between 
the righteousness of the churchand and right- 
eousness of the world; there can be none, while 
the civilization of both tests on the same foun- 
dation and is conformed to the same standard. 

''Therefore thus saitd the Lord; behold I lay 
in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, 
a precious corner stone — a sure foundation. He 
that believeth shall not make haste. Judgment 
also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to 
the plummet. The hail shall sw^eep away the 
refifuge of lies and water shall overflow the 
hiding place."— Isa. 27: 16-17. 

If we find the prophets in the foundation at 
Jerusalem we must receive their testimony as to 
the effect it would have. The righteousness 
established by the sceptre of Christ in this king- 
dom is seen to be perfectly upright as a plum- 
met. It accorded the same right to all His 
subjects. The same law of induction into His 
kingdom — the same relation to God and to each 
other. 

The world had never before received a dis- 
pensation which was upon all nations — addres- 



34 THE TWO WITNESSES'. 

sed to all nations — and to which all nations arc 
made accountable in the very constitution of it* 
To those who are looking for another, we 
enquire to what nation will it come, and what 
purpose will it serve? 

This regulation in some things and indif- 
ference in other things leaves room for Satan to 
creep in and spoil everything. 

God gave the world one inspired record of 
the divine constitution and building together of 
His kingdom, witnessed in his own way by his> 
visible presence, written by its founders and 
builders, and He will not build over again; but 
will ere long enforce the sceptre of its authority 
over all men. 

The world has trampled the foundation and 
building of His Son under its irreverent and 
reckless feet. Eighteen hundred years and the 
lease of its proud defiance will soon expire. 
Judgment has laid and will lay to the line ever 
since righteousness was established in the earth 
by the plummet of Christ's sceptre. Judgment 
stood like the horozontal end of a square to 
the planting of His sceptre in the overthrow of 
the typical nation and it lies today across the 
path of its antitype when the lease of their rule 
expires. The King has given to the world the 
witness of His own prophecy that when the 
record of its founding had reached all the 
nations the end of their lease would come, and 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 35 

that it would be trodden under foot to the end 
of that time. 

His Right to its Sway, 

The plea that will be entered against this 
two fold principle or law of joint heirship and 
its consequent enforcement will be that it appro- 
priates to the benetit and use of others that 
which does not belong to them and to which 
they have no just right. 

Let us see. It may be from your stand- 
point, not from His, nor from the nature of His 
work. He says to no one; I demand your 
w r ealth or you, or your service. No, my friend, 
he offers you himself, his life, his infinite resource 
of power— as having the keys of death and the 
grave with its dark and gloomy solitude. 
Heaven alone knows the darkness of that hour 
when the sun refused to shine, when the world 
in its madness cried "crucify him;" when in the 
agony of that hour he cried, "Father, forgive 
them, they know not what they do." Whose 
enemy was he meeting then? The same enemy 
he met in that forty days fast, who said, "All 
the kingdoms of the world will I give thee if 
thou wilt fall down and worship me." And to 
his honor and glory be it said that if there had 
been but one poor dying mortal to save, and 
that one you, he would not have done it. No, 
no, a thousand nos ring through the heavens 
now. 



36 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

He asks; no, invites you; my fellow mortal; 
to come with yourself, with your substance, 
be it much or little, and cooperate, unite, be one 
with him, in redeeming yourself, and your fellow 
man, and the earth from the deadly clutch of 
his foe and yours, that you may share with him 
the abundance of his kingdom, and wear the 
eternal honors of a restored earth and race. 

Would you deprive him the privilege in his 
kingdom of feeding the hungry, or rather pre- 
venting hunger, for we read of a time when they 
shall hunger and thirst no more. Charity, 
beneficence and protection has been awarded 
the province of earthly rule, and a worldly 
civilization. But it would be infinitely more to 
his honor if our Lord, who by his death and 
reign redeems man and his abode from death 
and the curse, if man brought to him the aid, 
power and influence of a divine civilization 
without the agencies which under the instiga- 
tion of Satan, always have and always will 
poison it under imperfect rule and customs 
established by unrestrained human ambition; 
for God has chosen things that men dispise to 
confound the mighty. 

The plan, then, of the divine empire is that 
of constitutional enactment legislative govern- 
ment and infalible promulgation followed and 
enforced by divine judgment. If uninspired, 
falible men can enact an imperfect constitution 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 3? 

followed by imperfect legislation which is im- 
perfectly understood, create accountibility, levy 
tribute, acquire domain, enforce its own form of 
rule and mould its own civilization and defend 
its own honor and authority, should we expect 
less of the corronated Christ? 

If our own beloved nation, which has the 
best government ever inaugurated by man, has 
a right because of its inherent virtues, to dis^ 
place Spain, and establish itself in Cuba, and if 
it is right in employing its own resources and 
people to an extent sufficient to accomplish that 
end, do we, can we, expect Christ to conquer 
Satan, banish evil, redeem and exalt man, 
abolish death and ^reinstate the Tree of Life, 
wuthout an uncripled sceptre and the full extent 
of his authority in the institutions it uses and 
the agencies it employs. The longer the world 
lives the more it needs something above and 
beyond itself to save itself from its rapid rush 
in pursuit of its own ambition to save it from 
its own need, its own failures, its own mistakes 
and disappointments and the weight of its own 
woes? 

The Covenant in the Sceptre. 

The only covenant God ever confirmed with 
an oath in which he swore by himself, was the 
covenant conveying to the seed of Abraham the 
earth for an everlasting possession. For when 



38 THE TWO WITNESSES, 

righteousness by faith or through faith opened 
its door to all nations, through the promised 
seed which was Christ, it was put into his 
hands for execution that in him all the families, 
of the earth might be blessed; and as Paul testi- 
fies, Abraham became heir of the world; it 
carries the covenant promise to all. When the 
reasons for this provision in God's eternal plan 
are seen, all questions and mysteries at once 
vanish. When we remember that through the 
resurrection earth's domain and its productions 
are inherited not by the living alone, but by all 
who share the blessed privilege of a resurrection 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. If joint heir- 
ship in things spiritual and things material be 
not an eternal principle in God's plan and the 
spiritual given supremacy over the natural, 
how can the earth be renewed by the New 
Heavens and made fit for the eternal tabernacle 
of God? 

A mighty throng of the pure, the great, the 
good and the holy; who have suffered, wrought 
and toiled, and many who have given their 
lives, on the altar of the world's weal; among 
them your ancesters and kindred and mine; does 
the eternal plan of God give them only room 
and time in this world to toil, suffer and die? 
Thank God, His eternal plan never made them 
pilgrims and strangers in the earth while they 
were striving to be a world to God. It was 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 39 

because the world thought so much of itsself 
that even its Christ could find no place of birth 
in it but an inn. The resurrection will never 
bring a mighty host who are to be only invited 
guests while the nations bring their honor and 
glory into the "New Heavens" and the "New 
Earth." God is adding greatly to our glory 
and convenience just now by increased power, 
light and invention, and time only waits for all 
to be turned over to him of whose sceptre it is 
declared: "The kingdoms of this world have 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His 
Christ, and He shall reign forever and forever." 
(Ages on ages.) 

As the nattire of opposing powers are re- 
vealed in their war cry and methods of conquest, 
so the enlightenment of the day has placed the 
ban upon persecution and the spirit of cruel 
revenge as a means of extending power or 
securing sway. 

The two witnesses and profance history 
alike wear the blush at the record of what 
corrupted human ambition will do to 
force its sway over man, his faith, his allegiance 
and inheritance. In weighing before the world's 
intelligence the sceptre of Christ and the very 
purest exhibition of human rule their contrast 
must be exhibited; their purpose and province 
be seen in order that their right of sway in the 
earth may be awarded. 



40 THE TWO WITNESSES. 



It is just and fair for the writer to correct 
false conceptions and erroneous ideas of the 
divine rule in the earth. As to the character of 
its opposition the world needs no revelation. 
It has much to its credit; but very little but 
what is the result of the divine leaven that truth 
has given it. The world has borrowed its hope 
from Christ and guilded its justice with a pre^ 
tense that it conformed to the righteousness of 

His rule. 

From a careful study of the whole plan 'as 
revealed in the two witnesses, we fail to account 
for the failure of the mass of its readers and 
students to grasp its purpose, arid the end and 
aim of its remedial agencies. 

That its grand beneficient purpose, with all 
the means employed, relate to the recovery of 
man from sin and its penalty, death; and the 
removal of the curse and man's exaltation to 
his promised dominion over the works of a 
divine creation in the restored relation of com-* 
munion with God. 

Paul in the second of Hebrews connects the 
sceptre of Christ directly with this purpose as 
above defined. We quote God's approval of 
His Son when he says: "A sceptre of righteous- 
ness is the sceptre of thy kingdom," and adds, 
"For unto the angels hath he not put in subjec- 
tion the world to come, whereof we speak." 
But one in certain place testifies: "What is man 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 41 

that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man 
that thou visiteth Him?" "Thou hast put all 
things under his feet; thou hast left nothing 
that is not put under Him. " In these quota- 
tions we find a clear foundation for the promise 
of Christ, oft repeated, that saints should be 
kings and priests unto God. 

No one will deny man's fitness for such a 
relation to God and His works when he has 
attained to a state of perfect righteousness. 
And we premise here that he will have attained 
that state when his nature is so renewed that 
he loves God with all the affections of his nature, 
and his fellow man to the same extent he loves 
himself. For on these two characteristics of 
fundamental divine law hang all the law and 
the prophets. 

In order to plant in man's nature the ground 
for perfecting this love to God, He exhibits to 
man his love in the gift of His Son for man's 
redemption brings man into sonship and heir- 
ship with their Redeemer and imparts to man 
the spirit of His Son. 

In order to plant in man's nature the ground 
for the perfecting of this love for his fellow man 
He institutes the relation of equal joint heirship 
to man's inheritance, thus removing all obstacles 
to a perfect brotherhood in the great and 
glorious family of God. Hence the twofold 
relation man sustains would be brought into 



42 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

perfect harmony with God's perfect law and the 
tabernacle (meeting place) of God could be 
restored in the earth and rest with man. 

It is important that we find the real cause 
of the bitterness in the vision of this conflict 
outlined in the repeated prophecy and in which 
the two witnesses take on sackcloth and in- 
creased power. 

It was not because of any weakness or im- 
perfection in the divine sceptre for it is in the 
hands of the Prince of the Kings of the earth, 
and the Soverign of the universe is bound by 
solemn covenant to enforce it. 

When the sceptre has been planted in the 
earth in the typical city with that nation which 
has been previously prepared by sufficient light 
and proclamation of its authority for its recep- 
tion, and it was rejected, judgment speedily 
followed and the nation was overthrown. 

At this point in repeated prophecy it stands 
in challenge before all nations for their accept- 
ance and adoption. To them the same stone 
has become the head of the corner. But the 
nations must first be fully admonished by divine 
proclamation of its founding, character and 
object; and when the two witnesses have finish- 
ed their work of witnessing — as testified by its 
King — the work of judgment must and will 
follow. But the nations will treat the sceptre 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 43 

and the two witnesses as the typical nation 
treated its King — overcome and kill them. 

We cannot emphasize too forcibly that the 
opposition is all on the part of man, and some- 
thing in man's nature and customs that the 
sceptre challenges and interupts. In this age 
as in that it is not the person of Christ or His 
work, for that the world admires. It is now 
and always has been that in man's nature 
which alienates man. The spirit of monopoly 
with which unrestrained ambition clothes the 
province of human nature, and prompts man 
to a ceaseless struggle to gain ascendency over 
his brother man, and over a just equilibrium of 
right pertaining to anything. The chief hin- 
drance in the way of the divine sceptre, then 
and now, is the world's ignorance of and oppo- 
sition to, the complete brotherhood of man, the 
foundation for which we find laid in His king- 
dom at its founding at Jerusalem. Earthquake 
after earthquake (revolutions) have passed in 
review before the plain testimony of the two 
witnesses while the world has closed its ear to 
their faithful testimony; and has rushed madly 
on in its path of warfare, bloodshed and suffer- 
ing. 

The world must learn the primary lesson 
that in God's revelation concerning His Son it 
must find its path and its means to rest and 



44 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

glory; and not in the biased judgment or opin- 
ions of men. 

If we could induce the misguided church of 
today to bring up to the present the unrecog- 
nized part of that foundation which provided 
for, and exhibited to the gaze of assembled 
nations the restored brotherhood of man and 
again build together the earthly and spiritual 
foundation of a holy temple in the Lord, it 
would be a work of more value than a thousand 
lives like our own. 

The sceptre has been called a sceptre of 
mercy. It is more. It is a leader, a regenerator 
and a renewer. "Ye shall know the truth and 
the truth shall make you free." "Old things 
have passed away, all things have become 
new." The plan committed to the sceptre pre- 
ceeds judgment and when its irom rule is dis- 
closed, as it will be, it will smite the nations 
and exhibit the injustice, false pride, arrogance, 
and false claims to righteousness in their 
deceived and misguided position before the true 
standard. 

When the world discovers that it has stum- 
bled at that stumbling stone and rock of offense, 
which was laid at Jerusalem that made all men 
equal in right and appropriation, it found resist- 
ance in the will that could only find gratifica- 
tion in a struggle for supremacy. 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 45 



When man aspires to a new birth and life, 
the power that gives him that birth and con- 
du:ts him in the attainment of that life; must 
provide for his return to the childhood of his 
nature for self-renunciation, and for such safe 
conduct of life as will waiTi off the necessity for 
its return. The failure of the church to discover 
and apply the provision in the kingdom for 
these ends, has filled it with dissatisfied hopes 
and weak and vascillating lives, and Christlike 
life and strength is sacrificed. 

The world and the church today sadly needs 
the exemplary and demonstrative power of such 
a divine civilization as the building of God on 
His perfect foundation could furnish. The 
world is wiser in its day than the Children of 
Light. Its carnal spirit has discovered the vast 
advantage in cooperation to attain its own 
ends; but where is the institution today that 
can point to the application of the command of 
the Spirit that there be no divisions among you, 
but to be perfectly joined together, in the same 
mind and the same judgment? Can we imagine 
that Christ prayed for the unity and coopera- 
tion of His body, and did not provide for its 
unity and cooperation? 

The sceptre intercepts judgment. Its con- 
ditional grace and favor make it available. 
Judgment is alike progressive and corrective. 
What force these facts have upon us as a people 



46 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

as the conflict of ages draws nearer its final; 
contest and decisive measure of strength. 

If the authority of Christ, embracing as it 
does, all power in heaven and earth, has in it 
the foundation truths underlying a perfect state 
it muse and will prevail. If a system, a rule, or 
a faith; be fundamentally wrong, it never can be 
made practically right. To use Christ's own 
figure; "If the tree be corrupt its fruit will be 
corrupt." 

A system or rule that is based on a false or 
incorrect foundation will need constant amend- 
ing and propping to make it bearable and 
practically applicable to its purpose. These 
constant additions and subtractions make it 
top heavy and so cumbersome that neither 
wealth nor wisdom can maintain it and it falls 
of its own weight. The things that are transi- 
tory cannot be eternal. "These things must be 
once more shaken that the things that cannot 
be shaken may remain." 

If God could have saved man and accommo- 
date His plan to any, or all, other ideas of what 
it might be, the world would have been saved 
long ago, and much of suffering averted. But 
His plan is perfect and will in the most avail- 
able auspicious time accomplish its beneficient 
purpose. 

The prophecy in Danial in regard to the 
four universal empires and particularly the 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 47 

fourth, or Gentile rule, the character and nature 
of which is set forth in Daniel 7:7; is brought 
forward in the vision of John and repeated 
again before "many nations, kindreds and 
tongues." The repeating of this prophecy gives 
to inspired prophecy the testimony of history 
as it records their rise, reign and overthrow by 
their successors, and thus confirms before the 
world the testimony of the two witnesses. 

The prophecy of the revelator exhibits in 
forcast the history of the fourth empire and the 
limit of its triumph over the witnesses, and its 
apparent victory over the secptre of the man 
Child who was to rule all nations with a rod of 
iron. The standpoint of this prophecy enables 
the revelaior to outline and describe the then 
future fortunes of the church and the character 
and strength of its opposition. 

The destructive malignant character and 
work of this fourth universal empire has passed 
into history, and the limit also of its power over 
the two witnesses carries us back to the work 
of Luther Tyndale and other translators. The 
eminent work of our modern bible societies 
has given world wide distribution of the bible 
in the different languages of the world. With 
the bible in one hand and profane history in 
the other we can look back at the reign of death, 
and darkness, and through the revelator look 
forward to the glorious triumph of the kingdom 



48 THE TWO WITNESSES, 

of our Lord. Time only waits for the announce- 
ment, "That the kingdoms of this world have 
become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His 
Christ, and that He shall reign forever and 
forever." 

We may very easily and unpurposely im- 
pea;h the testimony of the two witnesses, in the 
attitude we assume toward the work assigned 
them and the manner in which that work has 
been done. It has been their province to wit- 
ness the creation of the earth and of man with 
the avowed purpose of letting him have domin- 
ion over it; and to witness the transgression of 
man by assuming the right to appropriate to 
his use its fruits that he did not need and could 
not appropriate to his benefit. 

For this reason and no other, the spontan- 
eous productiveness of the earth in the things 
that were best for the sustainance of man was 
interupted and noxious needless productions 
substituted. This is declared to be the nature 
of the curse promounced upon it. The serpent, 
which is the personification of evil and of God's 
enemy and also man's, tempts man with the 
spirit of coveteousness — discontent with what 
God provided for him — and thus we find the 
very foundation laid in man's nature for that 
which has been his greatest foe. It has made 
him a slave and menial, and as the ages wear 
away becomes more and more exacting. 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 49 

Because of Satan's intrusion upon man's 
property and safe relations to God's creation, 
God predicted that the seed of the woman 
should bruise the serpent's head. No one can 
reasonably suppose that man, corrupted by 
habitual indulgence in self gratification of this 
same propensity, would ever formulate and 
adopt a principle that could eradicate from 
man's nature one so dominating as the world 
has seen this one to be? But the wisdom of God 
could see the remedy and predict its application 
€ven to the arch deceiver who aroused in man 
that power he possessed to exercise a coveteous 
desire for that he did not need. 

It becomes necessary to go back to the 
advent of evil and its fearful consequences, to 
ascertain the danger point in man's nature as 
well as to discover the advent of the remedial 
system found in the two witnesses. We note 
that man would possess very little to distin- 
guish him as the highest work of the creation if 
he did not possess the power of violation and 
aggressiveness in the pursuit of his personal 
ambition. 

But when those powers become the seat of 
a principle foreign to a perfect constitution of 
his nature and makes his ambition the agent of 
self to that extent that he cannot preserve 
intact the natural relation of a common brother- 



50 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

hood, they place him at varience with the funda- 
mental law of universal right. 

So we find in the record of the tw'o witnesses 
that God chose a righteous representative of 
our race, made covenant with him, that he 
should be the father of many nations, and to a 
nation of his descendants he gave a law written 
on tables of stone. The nation was typical in 
the sense that through them he would preserve 
his own record of his authority and the meas- 
ures taken to fulfill his promises. The law was 
written by God himself on Mount Sivrai; the 
mountain typified the high authority, and the 
tables signifying its divine nature or infallible 
rule of conduct. It defined the duty of man 
toward God, and also the duty of man toward 
his fellow man. Its substance covers what man 
should worship, and what he should allow his 
nature to indulge or prompt him to desire or do. 
We see that the aim of divine government is the 
exaltation of man in his affectional and practi- 
cal nature. If man could have attained true 
moral greatness and excellence as well by indul- 
gence as by positive restraint, God would have 
left him free to exercise his own discretion; but 
a state of human perfection and communion 
with God would never be attained. 

The divine authority is prohibitory; but 
divine grace is reclaiming and saving in its aims 
and since "the law was given by Moses, but 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 51 

grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Christ 
goes beyond the "Thou shalt not" and places 
man in such a relation to God and his fellow 
man that He has no temptation to false wor- 
ship or to covet anything of an earthly nature. 
He positively declared that to those who 
* 'sought first the kingdom and its righteousness 
all these things should be added/' which He 
could not have promised if the kingdom did not 
contain them. 

In the light of God's plan as revealed in both 
the old and new dispensations He reserves to 
himself the right to rule and care for his own 
people. He is able, willing and entirely prepar- 
ed to do so when men get in that position that 
they can appropriate His matchless favor. 

Christ is a great economist and furnishes 
His saints not what the world calls a free gov- 
ernment at a burdensome cost of millions 
annually; but a perfect government free. He 
does not employ a world full of machinery to 
administer government to a righteous people. 
His plan brings men into the righteousness of 
His kingdom, where they become kings and 
priests unto God in the things of this world. 
They constitute the nobility of the kingdom of 
heaven. And why should they not; for the con- 
stitution of His kingdom gives them the oppor- 
tunity to build states without prison walls, 
hospitals, asylumns, court houses and legisla- 



52 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

tures. These implements and devices are indis- 
penseable where corrupting agencies and insti- 
tutions feed the passions of degenerate man; but 
the body of the risen Christ is not left by its 
head either to be exposed to the insideous 
influences of exemplary vice, or a part of a 
system or custom that approves or upholds it. 
He could not have them *'grow up into Him in 
such relations. " 

Just prior to the time John wrote this 
revelation the two witnesses had become incar- 
nated in human flesh. The Old Testament in 
the person of John, the forerunner, and the New 
Testament in the person of Christ, the mediator, 
These two remarkable persons proclaimed the 
immediate advent of the kingdom of heaven; 
and divine manifestations bear abundant testi- 
mony to the reality of their predictions. 

This power'or process of incarnation in the 
human mind the truth in its purity, and man's 
capacity to receive, is the evidence that the 
recovery of the race is possible and the reason 
that the "Word was made flesh and dwelt 
amoung us," and we beheld its "Glory reflected 
in man." 

The possibility of man's reasoning powers 
becoming invested with truth without mixture 
of error, and the resurrection power of the 
Creator stands in God's foundation like a 
mighty rock against which infidelity and all the 



TlffE TWO WITNESSES. 53 

combined forces of deceptive power will be 
hurled in vain. There is hope for a man's re- 
covery as long as his mind is open to receive 
truth and his conscience responds to its appeal. 

If man's relations in the world are of that 
character that he drinks in more of the world's 
deceptions and unnecessary philosophy than 
God's eternal and revealed truth, his recovery 
from the dominion of evil can never under these 
conditions become complete. 

For this reason as well as many others, the 
kingdom of Christ in its founding emancipated 
man from the fearful neccessity of living amid a 
mountain of uncertainty and seeking to flash 
through its cloud of mists the light of divine 
life while his own mind and life must partake of 
its deception. It would be entirely useless for 
the perfect Christ to invest his people with a 
perfect standard and not provide for gathering 
them together under that standard. When the 
possibility and feasibility of the complete incar- 
nation of the pure living truth stands exempli^ 
fied in the person of every man who first received 
and wrote it for the enlightenment of the world, 
who will dare attempt to measure our respon^ 
sibility, with the fact standing out boldly before 
us that our attitude toward the kingdom of 
Christ is still leaving these two witnesses of the 
living Christ with the shade of mourning that 
our indifference casts upon them? 



54 THE TWO WITNESSES. 

If w^e follow the prophetic vision of John 
in its outline of events yet future, we behold the 
two witnesses in the majesty of their power 
and might. Their garb of mourning has been 
cast aside and robed in white, they advance 
rapidly on to the work of conquest. 

Thev have long been treated by a world 
seeking age, as a kind of secondhand necessity, 
as embodying a hope for man but dimly seen. 
The increasing light of the present time is re- 
vealing to many the exceeding strength and 
obdurancy of organized evil and injustice and 
the vast chasm unbridled ambition and a 
fluctuating standard of justice has left between 
the wealthy and the poor; and multiplied ex- 
pedients are proposed to remedy our ills and 
ward off our dangers and our liabilities. 

The fact that there is but one remedy, that 
forever settles perfectly and forever man's rela- 
tion with a Creator and His creation; and that 
relation defined by unerring justice must find 
recognition and acceptance, seems not to have 
occured to the world in its thought upon these 
mighty problems. 

Two things pertaining to this witness 
ought to attract universal attention and 
enquiry. The first is that the nations have 
been deceived, and the prophecy unveils to man 
the nature of the deception. In the ending of 
the conquest by the "Two Witnesses" they 



i 



THE TWO WITNESSES. 55 

invite the fowls of heaven to a great supper of 
God Almighty that they may eat the flesh 
(carnal appetites) of kings and captains and 
might v men and the flesh of horses and their 
riders. (The work of conquest by opposing 
powers). 

When we see these are overtaken and also 
the false prophet which had deceived them, and 
their deceptions together with their titles and 
high rank is cast into a lake of fire for their con- 
sumption, we must reason that these purely 
carnal achievements and the distinctions they 
create did not exist b}' the authority of the con- 
quering power which is called the "Word of 
God." If the rod of iron which is to rule in their 
stead and which pfeceeds from the Word and 
smites the nations had not been disclosed to the 
nations and presented to them by the Word 
they could not have been deceived. 

On the other hand, if the iron rule had been 
established in the earth and had been proclaim- 
ed by the conquering power, then the fleshy 
character of worldly rule and the distinctions 
and titles of worldly customs did not exist only 
by assumed right. 



The Open Book. 

LECTURE THIRD. 

"And I wept mie 1 ! because no man was 
found worthy to open and to read the book; 
neither to look thereon." Rev. 5:4. 

Again we take our standpoint of observa- 
tion eighteen centuries ago, aside the apostle 
John in his Patmos; and see a door opened in 
heaven. And one sat on the throne. This, the 
throne of the universe had never been abdicated 
by the Creator of all things; and there never 
will cease to be voices and thunderings as long 
as disorder and imperfection casts its shadow 
upon the sceptre of the universe. The four 
beasts full of eyes behind and before cast their 
crowns before God's throne and declared that 
He is worthy to receive honor and glory, for He 
had created all things for his pleasure. No well 
ordered intelligence can rest in disorder for order 
is Heaven's first law. 



THE OPEN BOOK, O / 

The author of these lectures cannot be loyal 
to the 'Prince of the Kings of the earth" with- 
out refuting one gross and widespread error, 
and one which he fears will bring wrath upon 
nations, ecclesiastical bodies and individuals. 
That is, that in the constitution of his kingdom 
as recorded in the Acts of His Apostles, He does 
not so clearly define and exhibit his authority 
as to supercede the right of any other rule in 
the earth from the time of His exaltation to 
authority, until all foes become His footstool. 
If He did not establish in theconstitution of His 
kingdom such authority, He is unworthy to be 
king; for he boldly declared to his apostles 
that all power was given unto him in heaven 
and earth; and sent them to proclaim His king- 
dom to all nations and to every creature. 

"And a throne was set in heaven." A throne 
signifies highest in authority. As to setting of 
this new throne at the right hand of God, it 
was set when the heir to the throne of David 
ascended to the right hand of God. This we 
prove by Peter, when the Holy Ghost with fiery 
tongue proclaimed to all nations His exaltation 
at the right hand of God; A. D. 33; recorded 
in Acts 2:34.36. 

"For David is not ascended into the heavens 
but David saith himself; the Lord said unto my 
Lord, "Sit thou on my throne, until I make thy 
foes thv footstool." 



58 THE OPEN BOOK. 

Peter then testified he is at the right hand of 
God, exalted and made both Lord and Christ, 
From that time this fact became the foundation 
store in the constitution of his kingdom, and 
whatever he commands must be obeyed So 
we find in the right hand of God a book; that 
bood opened would reveal his infinite displeasure 
with all that mared or defiled his perfect work. 
The book was written within and on the back 
side, sealed with seven seals. No man is found 
able to break the seals or worthy to open and 
read the book. 

The book here held in the right hand of God 
will not be needed when God is all in all, which 
will be the case when the "Prince of the Kings 
of the earth" delivers his sceptre back to His 
Father; having first subdued all things opposed 
to the will, or authority, or pleasure of God. 
In as much as Jesus Christ, who is a mediator 
between man the creature and God the Creator, 
undertakes to restore man to his allegiance to 
God, and bring the blessings of the infinate 
Creator upon all his works; he is worthy to 
receive God's revelation of his own character, 
attributes and disposition toward man. 

The seals and writing within and on the 
back side make it imperative that the book be 
opened and read. Back at the creation when 
the old serpent succeeded in introducing evil 



THE OPEN BOOK. 59 

and a consequent penalty of death and curse 
upon the earth, God made a prediction, viz: 

"That man should bruse the serpent's head, 
while the serpent would bruise man's heel." The 
serpent's posterity and man's posterity were to 
be at enmity. When or how the serpent's head 
was to be bruised, did not appear in the predic- 
tion. But the prediction is written in the book. 
No one from the back of the book could possibly 
uuderstand what the prediction implied in 
detail. When God called Abraham to leave the 
land of Ur, and promised to make of him a 
multitude of nations, and that in his posterity 
all the familes of the earth should be blessed. 
From that standpoint it was impossible to see 
when and how the promise would be fulfilled. 

W^hen God made choice of twelve of Abra- 
ham's descendants to be the heads of the twelve 
tribes of a great nation, no one could see just 
what it had to do with the covenant made With 
Abraham— making him heir of the world. It 
was then impossible to see in what way that 
would carry out the promise. 

When the posterity of the twelve Patriarchs 
were in bondage four hundred and thirty years 
in Egypt, and were brought out under the 
leadership of Moses, God's promises were still 
shrouded in mystery. When the nation had 
been established in their Can an, and the 
prophets still repeated the promises of a coming 



60 THE OPEN BOOK. 



heir to the throne of David, and prophesied of 
the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that 
should follow, we find them searching diligently 
what manner of time the spirit of Christ which 
was in them did signify; and angels desiring to 
look into the fulfillment of their wonderful pre- 
dictions. 

Whenever promises or prophecies are ful- 
filled, and the events or circumstances occuring 
are pointed out as their fulfillment by the one 
who was found worthy to loose the seals and 
open the book; then those promises — prophecies 
— together with the plan they accomplish, as 
recorded in the history of the events themselves, 
are no longer sealed. Fulfillment unseals the 
prophecies and events unfold the plan. 

In the birth and life of John, the forerunner 
and proelaimer of the immediate coming of the 
kingdom of heaven, and the birth, life and work 
and subsequent death, resurrection, ascention 
and coronation of the Christ, has taken place. 
These events open the book and unfold the 
mysteries which had been hid from ages, but 
was then made known to his holy apostles. 
So the Lamb on Mount Zion prevailed to open 
the book and loose the seals thereof. 

Other characters are given prominence in 
the visions of John and deserve recognition here. 
Their interest at the throne and in the Lamb, 
seem to have elevated them to a seat near the 






THE OPEN BOOK. 61 



throne. They had crowns of gold; a symbol of 
high honor in the exercise of authority, proceed- 
ing from the throne itself. Lexicons upon the 
Title Elder say their authority was almost 
unlimited under, or next to constitutional law; 
that they acted as judges, sitting in the gates of 
the local cities. 

The office of Elder in the kingdom of Christ 
as overseers of its interests brings rulers to the 
level of its subjects so far as worldly honors are 
concerned. The only honors accorded were 
spiritual, and they were to be merited by 
humble service to the subjects of the king. 
Heaven never questions the wisdom of making 
the office of Elder the highest ruling authoritv 
among the earthly subjects of his kingdom, but 
provides seats for them near the throne. Many 
earthly rulers of great distinction soon would 
be glad to exchange offices for this one if it 
would give them the same recognition in heaven 
that Elders receive. 

The adoption of this rule in his kingdom 
justifies the king; for when He w^as here as 
heir to the throne of the universe, He gave the 
founders of His kingdom a most astounding 
lesson of what would bring them enduring 
honor in heaven and earth. He took water and 
washed their feet. Peter objected, b^t submitted 
and took the lesson . If I your Lord and Master. 
Oh how humble, yet how perfect is the sceptre 



62 THE OPEN BOOK. 

of the king of all the earth. How perfect is the 
divine constitution under which His sceptre is 
weilded. 

The objection may be made that overseers 
as a ruling authority does not appear in the 
record of the founding of the kingdom at Pente- 
cost, as recorded in Acts; second and third 
chapters. But listen to the apostle Peter, 
through whom the gospel of the kingdom was 
then revealed: "The Elders which are among 
you I exhort. Who am also an Elder, and a 
witness of the suffering of Christ. Feed the 
flocks of God, taking the oversight thereof/ ' Not 
as Lords over God's heritage, but being exam- 
ples of flocks;" or again, "Obey them that have 
the rule over you, and submit for they watch 
for your souls. " 

But remember it was the Holy Ghost which 
Christ said the father would send, in His name, 
which gave to the subjects of the kingdom its 
overseers, and the kind and order of its ordin- 
ances, and the conduct of its temporal and 
spiritual interests. 

Humanity precedes exaltation in the king- 
dom of heaven. It is important just here that 
we introduce (the four beasi s full of "eyes before 
and behindhand have eyes within ) to the notice 
of the reader. For John see< these beasts cast 
their crowns before the throne in heaven These 
beasts undoubtedly represent the four universal 



TOE OPEN BOOK. B3 

- 

empires which prophecy declares will be suc- 
ceeded and completely displaced by the Lion of 
the tribe of Judah, who succeeds to univennl 
empire—all these empires, viz: The Babylonian, 
Medo Persian, Grecian and Roman, are all 
prophetically warned of their becoming like the 
chaff of the summer threshing floor, driven 
away by the wind, and a stone cut out of the 
mountain (throne of the universe) without 
hands, should become a great mountain 
(authority) and fill the whole earth. So John 
is permitted to see them worship before the 
throne in heaven. 

The beasts are in the midst of a sea of glass, 
(a multitude of people) which represents the 
position of the four empires to the worship of 
the true God; the last of the four having the 
sceptre at the time the kingdom of Christ was 
established at Jerusalem. At the opening of the 
seals they invite attention to the work of their 
empire, and horses symbolizing the character 
and purpose of their reign, and the result of 
their conquests. 

For the purpose of this lecture it is only 
neccessary to deal briefly with the fourth empire 
in its relation to the kingdom of Christ. The 
opening of the fourth seal discloses a pale horse^ 
and his name that sat on him was Death* 
Power was given to him to make war upon the 
saints, and to overcome them. No doubt the 



64 THE OPKN BOOK. 



world will be permitted to see the worst and 
the best of human rule. Its history contains a 
falling away, a bloody reign and a kind of 
reformation. 

We may readily infer from all we have seen 
of the character of the "Prince of the Kings of 
the earth" and the constitution of His kingdom, 
that His authority in regulating the earthly 
affairs of His subjects, had to be cast aside, and 
human policy, human ambition, pride, arro- 
gance and assumption of individual right sub- 
stituted, in order to prosecute the kind of rule 
ascribed to the fourth and last empire, A king 
who places all the interests of his subjects, both 
religious and secular, in the hands of those 
whose only motive in ruling is love and who 
never can become more than a joint heir with 
their fellow subjects to rewards, emoluments, 
need have no fear that his sceptre will be drip-> 
ping with the blood and suffering of his subjects, 
No danger of hunger, famine, poverty and star-, 
vation where all have the same right to the 
blessings of high heaven. 

We venture the suggestion that man has 
suffered more from man of all that is here 
described as the work of Gentile dominion, than 
under any other empire in the world. If we had 
the sum of its martyrs, of innocents tortured, 
of its millions starved with hunger, of its mil- 
lions sacrificed to defeat the ungodly ambitions 



THE tWD WITNESSES. 65 

of some other self imposed monarch; the degre- 
dation, the unrequited toil, the grinding poverty 
and the corroding care, from Nebuched Nezzar's 
time down to the present time; all of which can 
be seen to be the fruit of the right to individual 
supremacy, we would not wonder that the 
opening of the fifth seal exhibited their souls 
(lives) as crying with a loud voice: "How long; 
How long?'' Oh Lord, dost thou not avenge 
our blood on them that dwell on the earth; nor 
that white robes were given them, and they 
were invited to reign with their suffering but 
coronated Lord. 

With deepest awe, and yet with love for our 
fellow man, we approach the opening of the 
sixth seal. 

"And lo, there was a great earthquake* 
(revolution) and the sun became black as saclo 
cloth and the moon as blood, (no light in the 
political or ecclesastical heaven) and the kings 
of the earth and the great men, and the chief 
captains, and the mighty men, bond men and 
free men hide themselves, calling for rocks and 
mountains to fall on them and hide them from 
the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of 
his wrath had come, and who shall be able to 
stand?" 

Oh how many will fail to receive the seal of 
the living God in their foreheads? Why not bow 



66 THE OPEN ROQIv. 

to the sceptre of your King; reinstate the per- 
fect order of His kingdom? The king is holding 
out His sceptre; the earth praying for it; a 
groaning creation is demanding it; human 
suffering pleads for it; bewildered minds grope 
to understand it, and pride and mere human 
ambition denies it. Heaven weeps over man,s 
unwillingness. The coming of this day of wrath 
upon the nations is justified by their indiference 
to, and their rejection of the sceptre 
of the "Prince of the Kings of the 
earth." 

The wrath upon the typical nation of the 
Jews, was of itself sufficient as a national warn- 
ing of their fate if they rejected the "stone 
which had become the head of the corner" and 
which ground the typical nation to powder. 
And farther, because all men ought to expect 
and be willing that the sceptre of Christ should 
enforce and carry into effect the two cardinal 
principles of the unchangable law of God, viz: 
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
might, mind and strength, and thy neighbor as 
thyself." 

Upon these two hang all the law and the 
prophets; and in the constitution of His king- 
dom at Jerusalem, Christ put into effect that 
which perfectly carries out the unchangable law 
of God. He did this by making all equal in 



THE OPEN BOOK. 67 

right and title under his sceptre. The justice 
and purity of these two cardinal principles are 
acknowledged by all enlightened men. It is 
their practical application to all men 
by the "Prince of the Kings of the earth," 
by placing all His subjects on one common level 
in regard to possessions or honors., that offends 
nations and individuals. 

But it might be affirmed just here that if 
human selfishness, greed and human ambition 
enthroned, begets crime, tolerates murder, 
robbery, drunkenness, prostitution, theft and 
extortion, it ought to be shut out of every con- 
stition of every government in heaven and 
earth. Here is just why the sceptre of Jesus 
Christ will cast down the wrath of God upon 
the world for the righteous blood it has shed. 
And which will be severest upon teachers and 
builders for rejecting the divine foundation 
which rests upon apostles and prophets. 
Christ being the chief corner stone. It is the 
inforcement of this sceptre which w 7 ill convulse 
the nations and produce the great earthquake 
(revolution) which wall dissolve and displace 
the corrupt rule of the earth. The masses, when 
they see, as all will see, that the rule to which 
they have been subjected does not exist by 
divine right, but has existed by divine forbear- 
ance only, will rally to the sceptre of the "Prince 
of the Kings of the earth." 



68 fH£ OPT^N BOOK. 

After they have been sealed in their fore- 
heads, as appears tinder the opening of the sixth 
seal. "They appear a great multitude which 
no man can number of all nations, people, kin- 
dreds and tongues, stood before the Lamb with 
palms in their hands, (emblem of victory) and 
clothed in the robe of righteousness." These, 
as seen, come out of the great tribulation be- 
cause of their haviug been sealed. "The\' hunger 
no more, neither thirst any more, for the Lamb 
in the midst of the throne is leading them." 

At the opening of the seventh and last seal 
there is silence in heaven for a brief space of 
time. But seven angels are given seven trum- 
pets, but before they are permitted to sound 
much incense is added to the prayers of saints, 
and the smoke of the incense ascended up before 
God. The censer is filled with fire off the altar 
and cast into the earth, and there were voices 
and thunderings and an earthquake. 

In order to prove that the author has made 
no mistake in the interpretation of the earth- 
quake which the opening of the seventh seal 
discloses, and which results from fire off the 
altar being cast into the earth; that it means 
such a revolution, peaceful or otherwise, as will 
break into pieces world powers and all opposi- 
tion to the kingdom of the "Prince of the Kings 
of the earth," he calls in the testimony of the 
now open book which sends out its seven trum- 



THE OPEN BOOK. 69 

pets to announce the way in which the great 
day of His wrath will convulse the earth. 

When God gave the typial nation of the 
Jews their law, He sanctified that authority by 
a trumpet which sounded long and loud; the 
mount was burning with fire, there was dark- 
ness, blackness and a tempest, and the voice 
then speaking shook the earth. The apostle 
declares that the subjects of Christ's kingdom 
are not called to witness the thunders of Sinai, 
but that they have come to to the city of the 
living God, the New Jerusalem. Heb. 12:18-29. 
And adds: ''See that you refuse not Him that 
speaketh, for if they escaped not who refused 
him that speaketh on earth, much more shall 
not we escape if we turn away from Him that 
speaketh from heaven, whose voice then shook 
the earth/' But now He hath promised, saying 
once more; "I shake not the earth only, but 
heaven." The apostle says this once more 
signifies the removing of the things that are 
shaken as of things that are made, that the 
things which cannot be shaken may remain 

Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom 
which cannot be moved; let us have grace 
whereby we may serve God acceptably. Here 
the apostle declares that the present heaven 
(political and ecclesastical powers) and the 
earth, (present organized order) will be removed 
and that the kingdom of Christ cannot be 



70 the 0PEN r book:. 

moved. One more apostolic witness found in 
Second Peter, 3:10-13. He says the day of the 
Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which 
the heavens will pass away w r ith a great noise, 
(comotion) and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat; and that the removing of the 
present heaven and earth will be followed with 
the new heaven and the new earth wherein 
dwelleth righteousness. 

The author cannot pass from these witnesses 
without justifying his construction upon the 
fire cast off the altar into the earth. By the 
open book it will be seen that ffre and firey 
events and burning consumption are terms in 
which prophetic announcement of divine judg- 
ments are made. The prophet Joel says of the 
day of wrath, "It will burn as an oven, and all 
the proud and the wicked will be as stubble.' f 
Paul says, "every man's work on the divine 
foundation shall be tried as by fire." And again 
"Our Lord is a consuming fire." John the 
Baptist says, "every tree that bringeth not 
forth good fruit shall be cast into the fire." Jude 
in his book of a single chapter, being the last of 
the Epistelary writings, describes this day of 
wrath by a quotation from the prophets, and 
we here give his language: "Behold the Lord 
cometh with ten thousand of His saints to 
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all 
that are among them of all their ungodly deed& 



THE OPEN BOOK. Yl 



which they have committed; and of all their 
hard speeches which ungodly sinners have 
spoken against Him. These aremurmererscom- 
plainers walking after their own lusts, and their 
mouth speaketh great swelling words, having 
men's persons in admiration, because of ad- 
vantage. 

The effect of divine wrath is most clearly 
defined at the giving of the law to God's typical 
people, and recorded in the 28th chapter of 
Deuteronomy. 

The reader is requested to read Deuteronomy 
28th chapter, as the character and effect of 
divine judgment is there fully described. All of 
which we see carried out in the history of that 
typical nation and their remarkable overthrow. 
It will be remembered that Christ in His 
prop eciesrespecting the final judgment upon that 
nation, mingled w r ith it His prophecies respect- 
ing the judgments upon all nations at the end 
of Gentile dominion, and stated that the gos- 
pel of the kingdom must first be published 
among all nations; then the end would come. 

He also stated that there would be signs in 
sun, moon and stars, and upon the earth dis^ 
tress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and 
waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for 
fear, and for looking for those things to come 
on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall he 
shaken, 



72 THE OPEN BOOR. 

Unless the divine judgment upon that nation 
which received first the sceptre of the "Prince 
of the Kings of the earth" was highly exemplary- 
and typical of divine judgment upon all nations 
for rejecting that sceptre* the author can see no 
reason for His connecting the two great events; 
effecting His kingdom. 

We have the strongest evidence of this fact 
in the records of God's commands in regard to 
the character required in any king that He 
would ever choose or permit to reign over 
Israel, We quote Deuteronomy 17;15-20. "The 
Lord thy God shall choose one from thy breth-* 
ren; And that his heart be not lifted up above 
his brethren; and that he turn not aside from 
the commandment to the right or to the left, 
Stephen, the first martyr under the sceptre of 
Christ, identifies Christ as the anti-type of 
Moses, and states that whosoever will not obey 
Him shall be cut off from among His people. 

In support of the position that the seven 
trumpets describe the divine judgment which 
will characterize the great day of wrath. The 
author calls attention to the fact that the open- 
ing of the seven seals, the sounding of the seven 
trumpets and the pouring out of the seven vials 
of wrath, all terminate at one terminal point. 

The seventh seal discloses an earthquake, a 
"shaking of the powers of the heavens,' ' caused 
by fire from off the altar. Rev. 8:4-5. The 



THJE OPEN BOOK. 7S 

sounding of the seventh trumpet announces two 
terminal events. The first of these two is pro- 
claimed by the angel having in his hand the 
open book, and setting one foot on the sea and 
the other on the earth, proclaimed with a loud 
voice, swearing by Him that liveth forever that 
time as declared by the prophets and measured 
by the mystery of God, should be finished when 
the seventh trumpet begins to sound. Then as 
the measure of prophetic time relating to the 
kingdom of Christ expires, the sounding of the 
seventh trumpet proclaims that the ''Kingdoms 
of the world are become the kingdoms of our 
Lord and His Christ, and He shall reign forever 
and Forever." (Ages on ages.) The Foes of 
Christ have become His footstool. 

In His message to the churches, in the open 
book, nor in the sounding of the seventh trum- 
pet, is there any intimation that His sceptre 
has changed or been modified since He sat down 
at the right hand of God, A. D. 33. The same 
order, ordinances, gifts and blessings pertain to 
it still. 

His kingdom presented an open door to the 
seven churches of Asia. That door was opened 
when He sat down at the right hand of God, A. 
D. 33; is open now, and wall remain open until 
the nations walk in the light of it, and bring 
their honor and glory into it. Its gates are 
never shut day or night, only against that 



74 THE OPEN BOOK, 

which works abomination or introduces false-, 
hood. 

The apostle in writing his Revelation was 
to write of the things that were and the things 
that should be thereafter. Of the things that 
were then the "Prince of the Kings of the earth" 
discloses the mystery of the iniquity already 
working, and in His sevenfold warning holds 
out to the churches (local assemblies of His 
subjects) the exaltation of their king and vividly 
portrays the power of His sceptre. The open 
book alike testifies that He held the sceptre 
against which nothing could prevail, and that 
it never failed to furnish its might to those who 
took refuge under it. 

There is one painful case among the seven 
which the author cannot pass and discharge the 
high responsibility he has taken upon him. It 
is the last of the seven. We find there the con- 
ditions which always have and always will 
come squarely between the province and bene- 
ficense of the king and His subjects. 

"I know thy works that thou art neither 
hot nor cold. "Because thou sayest I am rich 
and increased in goods, and have need of noth- 
ing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, 
and miserable, and blind, and poor, and naked. 
T counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, 
that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment. 
that thou mavest be clothed "Ye cannot serve 



i 



THE OPEN BOOK. 75 

God and Mannon," has been His bold and 
emphatic declaration. 

That no man eould serve two masters He 
very well knew, for he would hold to the one 
and dispise the other. Such had been proven to 
be the case with the Laodiceans; such has 
always been the case with churches, with 
nations and individuals. And if the "Prince of 
the Kings of the earth' ' had not shut out of his 
kingdom the liability to stumble over the stum- 
bling block of the very root of all evil, He could 
not have justly spued out the Laodiceans. He 
^ould not with consistency have made the 
straight path to exaltation in His kingdom, the 
result of His own beneficience, and power, and 
the medium of God's infinite blessing, and at 
the same time allow the subjects of His king- 
dom to bow to the behests of the mannon of 
unrighteousness, either to climb upward among 
their fellows or to procure their sustenance. 

He that could feed five thousand with five 
loaves and two fishes, will always be able to 
feed his subjects without their being burdened 
with such individual care and effort as to render 
them almost oblivious to all that is really great 
and ennobling. 

He well knew that if he left the door open 
for covetousness to become enthroned in human 
hearts, it would be the stepping stone to man 
worship, and even permit wealth to buy its way 



76 THE OPEN BOOK. 

to rule; and human systems would even inaug- 
urate the worst corruptions for gain. 

The author would not for one moment cast 
any approbrium upon honest persevering effort,* 
nor disregard the need or merit of persevering 
industry; but he has resting upon him respon- 
sibility that should make him oblivious to 
unjust criticism. If he may be able to point out 
to his fellow man clearly and unmistakably, the 
sceptre of him of whom Moses and the prophets 
did write; if his feeble effort may soften judg- 
ment, avert calamity, quiet unrest and strife, 
dethrone evil, and banish human suffering, he 
would have accomplished a task worth a thou- 
sand such lives as his own. If the conditions 
now do not demand the sceptre they never 
have. If the remedy it affords cannot be applied 
by this enlightened age, then the author dis- 
pairs of his fellows staying or softening the day 
of wrath. 

The exercise of all the powers of man in 
attaining either wealth or mere worldly distinc- 
tion has always been and always will be at the 
expense of his spiritual and moral growth; and 
will never give him the grasp of a living faith, 
nor fit him 10 reflect the image of the Creator. 

A groveling, slavish, unsatisfied life is neither 
the creature of Eden, nor condition of the new 
earth. And the "Prince of the Kings of the 
Kings of the earth" cannot impart and develop 



THE OPEN BOOK. 77 

in man his own perfect manhood and leave him 
the defenceless prey of a remourseless greed; nor 
the unprotected victim of the combined schemes 
of all the powers of darkness. No, reader, he 
instituted in his Kingdom that which made his 
blessings temporal and spiritual the heirloom 
■of all his subjects. 

We close this lecture with one more reference 
to that event which was to be heralded as the 
good news to all nations, and to every creature. 
And find the record of that Pentecost A. D. 33, 
that the will of Cod, as revealed by His Son 
had been fully honored by the holy Spirit under 
the authority of the heir to the throne of the 
universe. And the writer has no lingering 
doubt left as to what the sceptre of the Christ 
demands. 

It demands the open confession that he is 
Lord and Christ; it demands repentenceof sin, 
renunciation of former life with all its individual 
monopoly of earth's blessings. It demands the 
putting off the old life and the putting on of the 
new, by being buried and raised with him in 
baptism. It demands cooperation and unity of 
life and purpose that would entitle its living 
subjects to the gifts of the Holy Ghost. 

The author has been much perplexed in try- 
ing to reconcile the teachings of Christ. The 
promise in the commission to the apostles that 
he would be with them always to the end of the 



78 THE OPEN BOOK. 

age, the conditions existing in his kingdom at 
its founding, and the solution given to these 
things by modern thought and practice. And 
he now fully believes that modern reformers 
and church builders, who have professed to go 
back to Jerusalem for their model, did not 
remain there long enough to get the divine 
model so fully engraven on their hearts and 
minds as to reproduce it in its completeness and 
purity. Thtr author disclaims any desire for 
honor in this regard, but he deplores the suffer- 
ing of a groaning creation and is seeking for the; 
sceptre that can dispel its foes. 



The Bitter and the Sweet. 

LECTURE FOURTH. 

"And I took the little book out of the 
angel's hand and ate it up; and it was in my 
mouth sweet as honey; and as soon as I had 
eaten it, my belly was bitter. " Rev. 10:10. 

44 And lie said unto one, rise and measure the 
temple of God, and them that worship therein; 
but the court that is without leave out and 
measure it not, for it is given to the Gentiles 
and the holy city shall they tread under foot 
forty and two months." Rev. 11:1-2. 

Nothing can be more bitter to man's selfish 
carnal nature, than the complete reception of 
God's plan as revealed in the open book. 

Nothing is so hard for man to get rid of as 
his idolatrous love of the world and himself. 

If he lives in an age of world worship and 
world service, for gain and human glory, the 



80 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

uprooting and removal of that love and wor- 
ship, will constitute the bitterest cross of his 
whole life and being. 

This change in the attitude human nature 
must assume toward the kingdom of heaven, 
indicates clearly why Christ placed so much 
emphacisis on this cross, the subjects of His 
kingdom would have to take up and bear. 

Men are of necessity, each an individual 
part of the system, social, civil and religious, of 
the age and generation in which they live, there- 
fore it was impossible to build a new institu- 
tion, absolutely pure and perfect, of which 
Christ was founder and head, without complete- 
ly changing man's relation from the old to the 
new. 

Hence in his plan it is not the willingness 
to give up some things, which are the ground 
of this love of self, of gain and carnal pleasure, 
but the actual giving up that which fits man 
for his kingdom and to receive its blessings. Un- 
der the present standard of the church the bit- 
terness of this cross has disappeared, and man 
goes on from his public profession to live in the 
church and serve self and the world. 

All the bitterness of the worlds experience 
comes from the need of a perfect righteousness 
in the earth, and while it has rushed on from 
one expedient to another leaving blight and 
desolation in its wake, the astounding fact con- 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 81 

fronts us that the rock of the ages was planted 
in the earth nineteen centuries ago and its per- 
fect fitness as a foundation for salvation, right- 
eousness, rest and peace fully disclosed. 

In order to give an enlightened age undeni- 
able testimony as to its relation to the age of 
the world, in its corresponding relation to the 
approaching triumph of the kingdom of Christ 
the revelator must eat the open book; and 
prophesy again before many nations, peoples 
and tongues. 

Manism and devilism combined has given 
to human kind one of the bitterest experiences 
in filling the measure of this prophecy the world 
has ever had, and the iron rule in the hand of 
Jesus so clearly pictured in triumph, gives to 
individual and national hope, a foretaste of 
infinite and eternal sweetness. 

The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of 
prophecy, hence the revelator must rise and 
measure the temple (dwelling place of God.) 
The court (Gentile rule) could not be included 
and forecast in prophecy as a part of God's 
building because a perfect history of manism 
and devilism combined, whose reign has con- 
stituted the anti-Christ of past and present 
history, and has and is baptising the world in 
blood and suffering must be measured separately 
in the prophecy. 



82 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

From the advent of the kingdom of Christ 
A. D 33, its authority witnessed; its righteous- 
ness revealed and established by the Holy Spirit 
and its authority promulgated, all other oppos- 
ing powers and forces that foster corruption in 
the earth, must from the standpoint of reason 
and prophecy, of necessity be regarded anti- 
Christ. 

Christ's kingdom, from the very nature of 
its great and Godlike purpose and work, admits 
of no rival perversion or mixture. To intercept 
its glorious and eternal purpose and plan on the 
part of man is eternal murder, and must and 
will shut us all from the Eternal City and the 
Tree of Life. To confess Christ and continue in 
our w-ork to be an opposer and rival of man, 
make us the enemy, if not directly, indirectly, of 
his safety and salvation. 

The selfrighteousness, conceit and vanity of 
this age may prevent our return to Jerusalem 
and taking the completed righteousness pre- 
scribed by the completed work of Father, Son 
and Holy Spirit, but will not prevent the ques- 
tion at the approaching marriage: Howcamest 
thou without the wedding garment? 

Our limit will not allow us to scan the his- 
torical record of the use the two witnesses (Old 
and New Testaments) have made of the power 
given them to smite the earth with plague, but 
we call attention to the fact that since this 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 83 

enlightened age fails to find a source or a cause 
for the ravages made by plague, drouth, 
famine, pestilence, fire, tempest and storm, that 
the unseen hand is writing upon the wall of our 
bold defiance the ''men.e tekel upharsin" of His 
eternal plan and that in them the wine of His 
wrath will be poured out without mixture. 

Just at the instance of this writing the 
author picked up in a neighboring town a 
secular paper (Inter Ocean) recording the fact 
that the waters of the Atlantic ocean presented 
all the appearance of the repetition of the 
plague of Egypt; that a substance that looked 
like blood covered the surface to the depth of 
eight inches and stank so it was difficult to 
approach the shore. That the dead animals 
were thrown up in winrows three feet deep 
around Naraganset bay, and that this condition 
continued for thirty days. 

For proof that the New Jerusalem, the Holy 
Citj T , New Heaven and the New Earth, the per- 
fect tabernacle of God is that institution which 
had its advent in the literal city and temple A. 
D. 33, we appeal to divine testimony. 

It was, under the sceptre of Christ, the 
blessed and glorious meeting place of God with 
men. The power of God in defeating unbelief, 
Satan, disease, sin and death, through man, 
was most wonderfully displayed. 



84 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

It was that institution which was to be 
trodden under foot of the Gentiles until the time 
of the Gentiles were fulfilled. 

Its counterfeit and enemy anti-Christ is an 
institution whose reign is limited to the time 
the true kingdom was to be trodden down. 

In nothing but an institution could perfect 
righteousness be revealed, enforced, exemplified 
and rewarded. 

Nothing else but a divine institution can 
entertain the relationship ascribed to the wor- 
shipers in the temple of God; that of children of 
God, saints, God's people, body of Christ, 
brethren, kings and priests unto God, etc. 

At no other time nor place in the inspired 
record can we find an institution (city) in whose 
foundations are the names of the twelve apos- 
tles of the Lamb. Certainly their names were 
put into that foundation which was laid at 
Jerusalem A. D. 33, and they declared no other 
could be laid. No other institution has in it the 
names of the twelve tribes of the Children of 
Israel, and no other institution ever will be 
found that more effectually separated the right- 
eous and the wicked. 

God never has, nor never will save man 
from suffering sin and death and make him per- 
fect except through instituted means, since per- 
fection is a growth and the source and ground 
of happiness now and hereafter. 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 85 

Man can never get in a happier place or 
state than in an institution (Tabernacle) where 
God dwells with him and where there is no 
weeping, sorrow, pain nor death and in which 
all these former things have passed away. 
When seen either in the light of reason or reve- 
lation the new Jerusalem can be nothing more 
or less than an institution (not a literal city) in 
which God dwells with man, and by His spirit 
cooperates with him in his recovery from sin 
and death, and his return to that perfection 
and innocence which makes man like the 
Creator. 

Nothing but an institution can become 
great and fill the whole earth, and into nothing 
ekse can the kings of the earth and the nations 
bring their honor and glory. 

History, experience and observation all 
prove that institutions mold and make men and 
the character of the civilization they build. It 
is rule, custom and the policies they conceive 
and inaugurate that bless or curse humanity. 

It is equally certain that the world would 
be infinitely better off with an institution that 
created righteousness, character, spiritual mind- 
edness, true conceptions of justice and eradicat- 
ed the selfishness that inflicts only cruelty and 
suffering upon man. 

It is significant that the eating of the open 
book prepares the revelator for the measure- 



86 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

ment of the New Jerusalem and the worshipers. 
With charity but in solemn earnestness we 
invite the reader to contrast this institution as 
it came down from God out of heaven, A. D. 33, 
and find now the worshipers who fill its 
measure. 

If not, why not? Man needs salvation as 
much now as then. It is not right to wait until 
the judgment age either to be saved or to save 
others. Are we saved or in a position to save 
others when we do not fill the measure of wor- 
shipers who have constituted a part of the 
tabernacle of the living God and who have been 
measured and accepted of Him? 

Every stone admitted to God's building on 
its foundation was measured and dare, will we, 
refuse to apply that measure to ourselves, our 

lives and works? If we do we may expect to 
hear him say; "I never knew you. Depart. " 

God help the author to fill the measure of 
his responsibility just here. The astounding 
fact confronts us that all these property rights 
so much sought after and worshipped by this 
age and generation, their entire title has 
descended to us from anti-Christ, and in its use 
we are maintaining institutions which we must 
admit are an offence to God and a curse to 
man. Why not surrender these rights and 
acquire title under Christ? Sooner or later it 
must be done and we become joint heirs with 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 87 



Him. This measure is the needle's eye of His 
kingdom and He never has nor never will 
enlarge it, to admit you or me. Will we hold 
them as rilling the measure of our hearts and 
lives now, and in the time of separation be 
found without a place to rest the soles of our 
feet, and with those who are angry at the 
triumph of the measure of His righteousness in 
the earth. 

This is the measure Christ filled in His 
birth, growth, development and perfect man- 
hood as indicated by the seamless robe He wore 
to the cross. As a result of this development 
under the ministry of the Holy Spirit we find in 
Him a perfect union of the human and the 
divine. 

His saints must of necessitv divest them- 
selves of carnal worship and service and begin- 
ning with a childlike nature grow into His 
likeness; which cannot be done with their lives 
engaged in the worship and service of Mammon. 

This human and divine perfection in the 
person of our Lord has distinguished Him and 
made His life conspicuous in history and in the 
e\-es of all men; and when his professed follow- 
ers cast aside their mammon worship and bring 
their earthly interests into joint heirship with 
Christ and each other, and under spiritual 
ministry it will distinguish the kingdom of 
Christ above all other institutions. It is to be 



88 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 



presumed the Scribes and Pharisees were very 
good citizens, and as the world goes today, 
quite religious; but it takes a better righteous- 
ness than theirs to give one title in the kingdom 
of heaven. 

The Lord understands the means of our 
recovery infinitely better than we, and if busi- 
ness push as exemplified in this decade would 
help to introduce one into his kingdom he never 
would have arrayed business push as furnish- 
ing an excuse for not entering. 

His idea was if buying a piece of land, or a 
voke of oxen, or even marrvinsr a wife would 
become of such consequence to us that it would 
bar us from the great supper, it would be better 
to disengage us altogether from that danger 
and place man in such a relation to these earthly 
things in his kingdom that man's utter servi- 
tude to them might be obviated. 

The case of Lazarus and Dives is illusurative 
of the truth that the lowest depth of poverty 
and suffering is more eligible to heirship with 
Abraham in God's covenant than the extreme 
riches of Dives, which had filled his heart and 
life with his portion and placed him on the 
wrong side of the gulf between the two 
extremes. 

If the institution we have found providing 
for man's return to God and communion with 
him, was one of human policy and questions of 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 89 

dollars and cents it would be discussed on the 
rostrum and in the marts of trade; but the 
Mammon guild and Siren hope of worldly pros- 
perity has so completely stolen and captivated 
the interest and admiration of the enlightened 
age that man will follow its receding magnet 
of a false hope until he is stranded amid the 
confusion of his own falsity. 

The worst phase world worship presents is 
the slavery it entails, the blindness it creates, 
the weakness, depravity and suffering it leaves 
in its wake. 

So long as the age continues to look amid 
the rubbish of its own failures for the goal of its 
destiny, or the fruition of its hopes, it will be 
left to weep at the grave that swallows its 
highest ambitions and to find at the end of its 
pursuit their emptiness and vanity. The lower 
the deity the smaller the worshiper. 

The repeated prophecy by the revelator 
traces and exhibits three powers in the relation 
to each other as history records them down the 
ages. 

The two witnesses in Jtheir testimony to the 
plan of God and its outcome. 

The sceptre of Christ with its iron rule 
operating through his own institution, in the 
deliverance and salvation of men. 



90 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

Anti-Christ with its counterfeit kingdoms 
and their corrupt systems, as seen in rm^stic 
Babylon from its rise to its fall. 

The remaining space in this lecture must be 
given to the responsibility of the present age to 
the first of the three. 

These two witnesses constitute God's defense 
against a world's complaints in the bitterness 
of its strife, weakness and lawlessness. . The 
testimony they give would bring rest and peace 
to the troubled waters of man's unrest. 

This is an age of man worship, of glory in 
human achievements, of exaltation in national 
greatness and glory. 

While not insensible to the good that has 
been done and the advancement that has been 
made in many ways; we have to confess with 
sorrow it has brought «\s but little nearer the 
accomplishment of the great things in which 
God glories and the mission of Jesus made pos- 
sible, than we were a hundred years ago. The 
world seems not to have grasped the secret of 
His power nor the majesty of His purpose and 
plan. 

The bitter things pertaining to man's por- 
tion cling to him still, and under existing con- 
ditions give no clue to a way of escape. There 
is cruelty, enmity, passion and insensibility to 
suffering in man's nature yet. 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 91 

There is a large place in the public heart 
and nature for depravity to engender degenerate 
schemes, and for pride and avarice to work 
them out even at the disregard of suffering and 
sacrifice of life. 

Disease, plague, crime, proverty and calmi- 
ty, stalk defiantly along in man's career yet, 
and none of the world's physicians seem to 
have discovered a remedy or way to escape. 

We need not ask pardon for assuming that 
there is a way of escape and a remedy or God 
would not reveal his restrained wrath to man 
for the part he takes in these things and the 
conditions that engender and produce them. 

Since the world has tried almost every 
other expedient and panacea we suggest the iron 
rule in the sceptre of the Christ for the recon- 
ciliation of man with man. 

It seems to us morally certain that where- 
ever men disengage themselves, their influence 
and works from all degenerating, corrupting 
agencies, and devote their energies and powers 
exclusively to the rescue of themselves, and 
their fellow men, from their corrupting power, 
the cooperation of Christ in a w-ork so much 
his own, and with those so like himself will not 
be wanting. 

Such an opprotunity will never pass by un- 
improved by Him who came to seek and save 
that which was lost. 



92 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

Whenever men are engaged in his work in a 
way to accomplish his purpose to save what 
they gain, and bring about now and hereafter 
the conditions that bear witness to his work, 
Christ will not hold in reserve his matchless 
power to save and bless mankind,, 

The world will always find Him in his own 
institution and with his own people and in it 
there is both safety and salvation. 

What a rebuke it would be, to a world seek- 
ing, world loving, money grasping age if those 
who confess Christ brought their wealth and 
all their powers of service and make a eomplete 
offering of all to the exclusive use of the king- 
dom of Christ in a determined and aggressive 
struggle for the rescue of man and 'his abode 
from all that is degrading, oppressive or des- 
tructive. 

Truly it would make the kingdom like a 
city of refuge to the weary, endangered, faint- 
ing wayfarer when stranded amid the rocks, 
pitfalls and snares of a corrupt world i 'There 
would be one fold and one shephard." 

With the best that has been done by the 
state and others organized forces, it cannot be 
denied that the question of home, shelter, bread, 
sympathy and protection, constitutes the great 
and oppressive bnrden of the masses. 

The cold dry charity of the state may fur- 
nish for the time food for the stomach and shel- 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 93 

ter for the body but it takes the environment of 
the love of Jesus to win a man from the paths 
of vice and to keep him from falling after he is 
won. 

It is not Christ's method to entice lambs in- 
to his fold just to turn them out again among 
the wolves and we assume the only reason his 
servants have, was for want of a better under- 
standing of his plan. 

The revelator records the increased use of 
power as the vehicle of divine wrath until it 
culminates in the great and decisive contest be- 
tween the divine sceptre and the corrupt 
power it confronts. 

Both the elders and saints give thanks that 
God reigns, that the nations are angry and for 
the destruction of them that destroyed the 
earth. 

If both the churches and the world are in 
the right relation to God and to each other we can 
hardly see the need of this constant and increas- 
ing visitation of wrath, for both in that 
event might hope and pray that it might cease. 

If an enlightened age could foresee what 
was demanded and enforced by such visitations 
and accede to the demand it would remove their 
neccessity of a forced compliance and the pun- 
ishment it involves, and since righteousness has 
been revealed and exemplified in the earth, 



94 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

unrighteousness can neither demand nor expect 
toleration. 

An overwhelming responsibility rests upon 
the builders of this generation to restore that 
institution which contains the only exemplifica- 
tion of a perfect righteousness for man the 
world has ever had by building again the build- 
ing of God, made without hands and eternal in 
the heavens. It is the demand of God through 
the Spirit and the application of the mission 
of Jesus to a groaning, suffering creation. 

When the world has its history written 
aforetime, and the events that make up its 
career chronicled before they transpire, as was 
the fate of the Jew r ish nation, and this prophecy 
forcasts the end to which all the nations are 
now drifting in their indifference to the sceptre 
which is to rule all nations with a rod of iron, 
they ought to be able to read the hand writ- 
ing on the wall and avert the world of suffering 
which must otherwise inevitably enforce the 
lesson the prophecy teaches. 

How much better to prepare for crucial 
events than be overtaken by them as by a thief 
in the night. 

How convincing the fact that evety day's 
calamitous events are a gracious reminder that 
the divine sceptre is held out to us, calling us to 
take refuge under the rocks of ages. The men or 
nations who love the fabrics of their own 



THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 95 

building and the carnal glory they bring them, 
better than they love the eternal structure of 
the perfect Christ with the eternal happiness 
and safety it affords earth's millions, will not 
do for pillars in the temple of our Lord, nor 
for kings and priests unto God in the new 
earth. 

The world ripens fast and events culminate 
quickly when prophetic light is focused upon the 
career of nations and the character of their 
policies, systems and institutions. 

The harvest of the earth will ripen quickly 
after the sowing is done, and just as surely as 
righteousness has been revealed as the true 
foundation of all social, religious and political 
systems, so sure will systems not founded 
upon the eternal principle of the fatherhood 
of God and the brotherhood of man through 
the mediation of Christ be swept away, and 
the ''Kingdoms of this world become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and His Christ, and 
He shall reign forever and forever, (ages on 
ages.) 

The optimism of the present can scarcelv 
discern through the dense fog of conflicting 
policy, clashing faith and bewildering thought, 
the cubic beauty of the divine institution 
that once brought man into perfect fellowship 



96 THE BITTER AND THE SWEET. 

with God and with each other, but after 
its Gentile treading is ended its glory will be 
brighter and its rest sweeter. 



Satan in the Earth. 

LECTURE FIFTH. 

4 'And the great dragon was cast out, that 
old serpent called the Devil and Satan, which 
deceiveth the whole world, was cast out into 
the earth and his angels were cast out with 
him." 

In the beginning of this our fifth lecture, we 
call attention to the wonder John saw in 
heaven, contained in this twelfth chapter. It 
introduces the man child who was to rule all 
nations with a rod of iron. John sees this 
child caught up to God and throne. 

The woman seen represents the covenant 
people of God, who had been promised the 
sceptre of His Son. It may be said that the 
name woman is significant of the power of an 
institution to gather new subjects under its 
administration. When rival institutions have 



98 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

that power the spirit of jealousy often arouses 
all the energy of conquest and subjugation. 
This spirit animates the great red dragon, 
(verse 4) with seven heads and ten horns who 
is ready to devour this heir to the sceptre over 
all nations. 

The inspired record justifies this description 
for the action of Herod in slaying innocent 
children shows the bloody, heartless character 
of the rule that was to confront the sceptre of 
the new born King. 

From all that we know of this personality 
called the Devil and Satan he could not have 
occupied a more favorable position than to 
become the instigator in a. corrupted, uncivilized 
earthly rule, and history is compelled to be true 
to the character of his work. 

When the heir to the rule of all nations is 
caught up to the right hand of God, there is 
rejoicing in heaven, and it is declared, that now 
is come salvation and the kingdom of our God. 
That kingdom had cast him out and the onlv 
domain he had was in the earthly powers, and 
only for a limited time in them, his wrath is 
kindled and activity aroused. 

Such the author understands the lesson in 
this part of the vision of John to teach. 

The accuser of the brethren had been cast 
down. This locates the heaven where there is 
communion with God; for it was before God 



SATAN IX THE EARTH. 99 



they had been accused. If we can find what 
had justified them before God, we shall find 
what had destroyed the accusation of Satan. 
Was it not the fact that thousands of Satan's 
former subjects had obeyed the sceptre over all 
nations and had become subjects of a new 
kingdom? Could anything else have justified 
them and made any accusation of disloyalty to 
God an impeachment of Satan? 

No, there is no other logical conclusion b^t 
what Satan had been cast out of that kingdom 
that was to become the inheritance of all 
nations by the iron rule of the man child; and 
that iron rule w r ould drive Satan out of that 
kingdom any time. 

While the power of the red dragon is in iron 
teeth and his province under Satin is to perse- 
cute and destroy saints and to instigate un- 
righteousness in the earth; it is the province of 
the iron rule in the hands of Christ to save men, 
and nations from the Devil and his powers to 
destroy. Whenever we can find the iron rule in 
the hands of Jesus, we can find a Devil killer 
and a man saver, and earth redeemer. 

My critic is envited to examine the work of 
that rule in the founding of the kingdom of 
Jerusalem A. D. 33 and point out the place in 
its work where Satan would assail it. Did you 
ever think that Satan did assail it at perhaps 
the weakest point? 



100 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

We quote, "But Peter said Annamas why 
hath Satan tilled thine heart to lie to the Holy 
Ghost?" Acts 5:3. And the Holy Ghost defend- 
ed the iron rule then it defended the kingdom 
against Satan then and would it not defend it 
now? 

We can plainly see that the iron rule would 
cause rejoicing now. That rule in the adminis- 
tration of the holy spirit is the regenerator of 
the earth. It would bring man back to God 
and God's gifts in unstinted measure to man. 
It would bring the tabernacle (dwelling place) 
of God to man. 

One glance at the work of the spint through 
man in applying that rule. In the ea^th at 
Jerusalem, A. D. 33 is enough to convince any 
of the mighty resources of the ever living spirit 
of God. 

But dear reader it must bring with its 
power the ever living sceptre of the blessed 
Christ, the law of that sceptre need not be 
repeated here, it cannot be changed after ,t was 
revealed and ratified by the living presence of 
the holy spirit and confirmed by God's two 
witnesses clothed in sack cloth and nothing but 
the deceptions of Satan could blind man to its 
benificience and power. 

We will not assume here to limit the 
prerogatives of the spirit of the ever living God. 
If it moved upon the face of the waters and 



SATAN IN THE EARTH. 101 

brought light out of darkness in the creation it, 
can drive darkness and disorder out ofthe earth 
and renew it, but the love of God restrains it 
from doing that and leave man^ to~ the destruc- 
tion of Satan. 

It might be helpful to enumerate some of 
the benefits that would exist in contrast with 
the present order with the iron rule of the 
sceptre under the administration of the 
spirit. 

It would wonderfully enlighten man by 
placing before all men the same standard of 
loyalty. If the gifts of God were enjoyed in the 
kingdom of His Son, it would convict the world 
of sin for not believing in him, and sweep away 
all misconceptions of the way of salvation. It 
would bring all believers in Christ into the one 
foundation and establish their unity upon it, 
and thus draw a visible line between the world 
and the kingdom of Christ. 

It would bring mankind literally into the 
kingdom of Christ and disengage him entirely 
and practically from any allegiance or service to 
Satan and give man access to Christ, soul and 
body for healing and renewing and life giving. 

This is the chief glory of the sceptre of 
Christ; that while sin abounds in the world 
and its institutions are all tarnished and leav- 
ened with evil that sceptre completely emanci- 



102 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

pates man and his life work from any affiliation 
with that which is corrupting or defiling 

It does this by bringing under its spiritual 
jurisdiction the domain, products, industries 
and enterprises of the earth, and enables its 
subjects to perform all this service in His name. 
Unless it did this it would not be complete nor 
be the sceptre for all nations and for all time, 
and could not reinstate righteousness in the 
earth. 

It is a glaring incongruity when a believer 
is left to pay tribute to the kingdom heaven and 
to the liquor power and do both in the name of 
Christ. The sceptre of Christ would bring- 
together into cooperative bodies the scattered 
bewildered people of God, and as they were at 
Jerusalem they would all be with one accord in 
one place, ready to grow into an "holy temple 
in the Lord," and be purified unto Christ a 
peculiar people zealous of good works, and the 
work of gathering together into him all things 
which are in heaven and in earth would be 
going on. The spiritual wisdom, activity and 
enterprise would crown it with glory and honor 
and the perfect justice it administered would 
make the sceptre a royal diadem in the hands of 
our God. Under God it could pave the streets 
of the New Jerusalem with gold, and dry the 
tears from the faces of its subjects. 



SATAN IX THE EARTH. 103 

When God is with man there is nothing too 
great or too good for man to do. With man 
alienated from God by "wicked works" and left 
to the instigation of the Devil, there is nothing 
mean that he may not be led to do. • 

When the sceptre of Christ has been planted 
in the earth, and the foundation of the new 
heaven and the new earth has been laid, and 
the work of building upon began, when Satan 
and his angels (messengers) have been cast out 
into the (old) earth, he knows that his power 
has been broken, and that his time is now limit- 
ed, and his wrath is kindled. The new king- 
dom has not yet succeeded to universal empire, 
but its sceptre is in the hands of a conqueror, 
and the spirit of the ever living God with it and 
its triumph assured. 

If Satan can instigate human rule to assert 
itself in defiance of its power and authority, and 
deceive the nations with regard to it, it will give 
vent to his anger and display his wrath. 

Human rule must exhibit its worst as well 
as its best character, in order to convince all 
grades of human intelligences that the sceptre 
of Jesus like himself is perfect. 

It might be noted here that the kingdom of 
Christ has earned the distinction of mother, as 
the New Jerusalem "has become the mother of 
us all," as Paul testifies. In her conflict she 
must go into obscurity because man is carried 



104 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

farther and farther into darkness by the red 
dragon, and whose children must be killed with 
death and tried by the fire of Satan's wrath. 
Yet death cannot prevail against the sceptre of 
the King, for he holds the key of death and the 
two witnesses have faithfully recorded the laws 
of his kingdom, and recorded the loyal services 
of his subjects. 

Nothing is lost that interscepts its final 
conquest in the earth, and soon the King will 
confront the world powers bringing with him a 
mighty host on whom the second death has no 
power, and fully prepared to be kings and 
priests unto God and reign with him. 

"And the serpent cast out of his mouth 
water as a flood after the woman that he might 
cause her to be carried away with the flood, 
and the earth helped the woman and opened her 
mouth and swallowed up the flood. " Rev. 12: 
15-16. 

False teaching, false standards, false light, 
and a spurious ecclesiastical order could find no 
other prosperous domain than man, under the 
delusions of a false rule, and without commu- 
nion with God and the light of his spirit and 
counsel, man is left a prey to all forms of decep- 
tion and any ism that self installed leaders 
might impose for their exaltation. The earth 
has always been hungry for both dominion and 
religion, and has failed to grasp the vital truth 



SATAN IN THE EARTH. 105 

i 

that restoration to harmony and communion 
with God must be the end and aim of all rule 
and religion, and for that reason the world has 
devoured and entertained vastly more of falcity 
than truth. 

A moment's reflection ought to convince us 
that man cannot live in the earth and develop 
perfect spiritual life under a rule that compels 
him to bow to a carnal standard. The scrip- 
tures enjoin upon the followers of Christ 
obedience to the civil rule under which they live, 
but provides that the things in which they have 
fellowship and are responsible for, shall be 
unde^ the law of Christ, and gives them the 
promise of rulership under him when he shall 
have put down all rule in the earth opposed to 
his kingdom. 

It is the rule and order in the kingdom and 
not out of ix that elevates and refines its sub* 
jects. A civilization in the earth out of har- 
mony with the divine nature cannot continue, 
and never was and never can be any part of the 
kingdom of Christ, and we modern builders 
might as well take a lesson here and cease try- 
ing to put the new wine of Christ's kingdom 
into old bottles; the old bottles will break ere 
long, and while the new wine may be gathered 
into new bottles, the labor of putting it in the 
old is lost. 



106 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

If the subjects of Christ's kingdom cannot 
build up a new civilization upon a divine basis 
it shows conclusively that they are as yet only 
half new creatures. With them v 'all the old 
things" have not yet passed away. It shows 
that we have not yet enough of the wisdom of 
God to be builders on a divine foundation under 
Christ. 

It might be easier to build a new Jerusalem 
than to renew, reform or reconstruct Chicago, 
New York, London or Rome. Some people 
think that when Rome is demolished the mil- 
lenium will be here; but the writer suggests that 
the horns will have to be knocked off the other 
corrupt systems before the Lamb of God can 
affiliate with them in the new earth. 

If we recognize the fact that his divine 
power has given unto us all things that pertain 
to life and gladness through the knowledge of 
Christ we might be able to build a civilization 
on the seven fold basis of faith, knowledge, 
temperance, patience, goodliness, brotherly 
kindness and love. 2nd Peter 3:3-7. 

A civilization that does not shut out the 
things that destroy these graces in man, is not 
the civilization of the kingdom of Christ, and 
does not enable its subjects to escape the cor- 
ruption that is in the world through lust. If 
we want to know what constitutes a complete 
order of civilization, we have it here, and it is 



SATAN IN THE EARTH. 107 

a poor kingdom that does not furnish and a 
bad kingdom that introduces the things that 
destroys it. 

If the earth has opened its mouth to swal- 
low the flood of corruption that the serpent 
cast out of his mouth, on purpose to carry 
away the kingdom of Christ, and the kingdom 
had to take refuge in the wilderness of obscurity 
to escape his flood, as God's creation took 
refuge in Noah's ark, the professed friends of 
Christ and enslaved humanity ought to bring 
it out of its obscurity and show its beauty and 
perfection. 

Gold seemed to be a symbol of incorruption 
or of the divine nature. It is a metal that will 
not tarnish. Christ had such a nature, though 
he inherited all the weaknesses of our own; but 
lie overcame those weaknesses by strict obed- 
ience to the will of God and by filling the meas- 
ure of His work. 

Neither in His own life nor in thelives of His 
deciples do we rind any affiliation with false 
systems, but he commanded them to do not 
after their works. The kingdom of Christ has 
to be a kingdom within or under a kingdom in 
its conquest. 

But for some reason the perfection of its 
order, the divine simplicity and import of its 
ordinances, the grandeur of its unity, the object 
of its temples of knowledge and the use it makes 



108 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

of the two witnesses, are more instruments of 
unbelief in the eves of individuals and nations, 
than of faith. If we have any salt left in us, is 
it not time to rise up and enquire, why? 

With a blush the author looks at the mis- 
sions of centuries, at the armament of 
nations, at the domination of wealth, 
at the boldness and insolence of corrupting 
agencies, at the sword against sword, at the 
grinding poverty, at the dominance of pride 
and passion, and the mockery of human ambi- 
tion and its glee of triumph, and then at the 
lowly Jesus beneath man's woe, and looks at the 
friends of Jesus and ask; Where is the sceptre in 
the hands of the spirit? 

Will we, dare we leave that sceptre of might, 
of purity, of unity, of brotherly love, that 
glorious instrument of a divine cooperation in 
saving men, to rest under the corruption of 
Satan's flood? Or will we lift it out and rally 
round it with our lives, our fortunes, our 
powers; our hearts thrilled with the love of 
Jesus, our hand underneath our brother's load, 
and invite our once suffering King again by His 
spirit to walk in the midst of the seven golden 
candlesticks? 

Within the limit of these lectures the author 
cannot anticipate and answer all the criticisms 
that his position may justly merit, but a brief 
space in this one will be devoted to answering 



SATAN IN THE EARTH. 109 

one, that if nothing else bias will provoke 
against it, vis: That it is revolutionary and 
incites insurection against civil rule and the 
institutions they foster. 

If that criticism be just, both Jews and Gen- 
tiles could not be censured for condemning the 
Nazerene, for he prolaimed openly the principles 
which the writer has found his sceptre to 
enforce. 

No believing reverent mind will deny the 
sovreignty of the ever living spirit of God, Who 
has a right to deny anything to God that will 
contribute to the regeneration of all nations 
and races of men? Such philanthropy is worthy 
the right of way, and that the streets through 
which it marches should be paved with gold. 

We ought to be willing to accord as much 
right to him who can restore the withered limb 
and unlock the tomb, abolish death and wipe 
the tears from all eyes, as we do to a railroad 
corporation, or the combination that enriches 
itself through the liquor traffic. 

We would suggest that it would be far 
wiser, more just, more philanthropic to turn 
over the vast increase in knowledge seen in the 
inventions of this nineteenth century to the 
sceptre that brings the tabernacle of God to 
man, than for them to remain the mere gratifi- 
cation of human ambition, but the order and 
blessings of Christ's kingdom are never forced 



110 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

upon anyone and especially those who love un- 
righteousness and earthly glor\ T , more than 
they love Christ or their fellow man. It is to 
his people Jesus looks for fellow helpers, and 
cooperation, both with himself and with each 
other, and the blessed spirit. Who will attempt 
to say he has it, and if not, why not? 

The author will conclude this lecture by 
introducing testimony positively identifying the 
kingdom and its conditions after it comes from 
its obscurity, and with a tearful eye and prayer 
to God, gives utterance to the most intense 
desire of his heart, that his own beloved land 
might lead the nations in reinstating the 
sceptre. 

"For behold I create new heavens and a new 
earth, and the former shall not be remembered 
nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice in 
that which I create, For behold I create Jerusa- 
lem a rejoicing and her people a joy. 

"And I will rejoice in Jerusalem and joy in 
my people, and the voice of weeping shall be no 
more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. 

"There shall be no more thence an infant of 
days nor an old man that hath not filled his 
days. 

"For the child shall die an hundred years 
old, but the sinner being an hundred years old 
shall be accursed. 



SATAN IN THE EARTH. Ill 

"And they shall build houses and inhabit 
them, and they shall plant vinyards and eat the 
fruit of them. "They shall not build and an- 
other inhabit. They shall not plant and anoth- 
er eat, for as the daws of a tree are the days of 
my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the 
work of their hands. 

"They shall not labor in vain, nor bring 
forth for trouble, for they are the seed of the 
^blessed of the Lord and their offspring with 
them. And it shall come to pass, that before 
they call I will answer, and while thej: are vet 
speaking I will hear. 

"The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, 
and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock, and 
dust shall be the serpents meat. They shall not 
hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain saith 
the Lord." Isiah, 65, 17-25. 

That the prophet Isiah pictures the new 
Jerusalem when the sword of persecution has 
passed by, and the waters of deception have re- 
ceeded from the rjerfect foundation, and com- 
munion with God has again borne fruit, we 
think no one can reasonably doubt. 

Let us look at the prophecy. The new 
heaven and the new earth constitute the Jeru_ 
salem seen in the vision of the prophet. The 
former heavens and earth have passed from the 
vision, and the memory or affections of the 



112 SATAN IN THE EARTH. 

people pleasure to God and a joy 

in themselves. 

The life of man has lengthened the age 01 
youth correspondingly. The unholy strife over 
earthly posessions has passed away, the earth 
responds abundantly to mans oeeupenev, want 
ig have cease:!, -peace blessed peace is 
in her borders, and God responds quickly to 
prayer. 

We ask in all deference to adverse opinion. 
Must there not have been a foundation for this 
>wth, development, and change in spiritual 
and earthly conditions?' Life is on the iuerec 

ith on the retreat, calamity no longer over- 
takes skill and industry, contentment rests in 
the ah nan, justice and equity are no long- 

er soug] lid not found. 

Blind ve been opened and deaf ears 

have ed. and the traces of the curse 

are being ablilerated. The seven vials of wrath 
have been removed a ng ver Babylon, the 

, light is u igf sc ire in the habitation of 

the ju- 
ple are coming out of Babylon and 
.er plag d the earth is lightened 

th the g : the angel that proclaims her 

fallen state 



Song of Victory. 

th. 

"And : : gl as - inmg le : 

fire: and them that ha g tten 
over the bea>t Lge and over 

he num 1 
sea : glass, having the harps of 
d. 

.:.\ they sing the song al M es the ser- 
vant of God. and the song of the L. ml - ;' — g- 
and marvelous arc thy thon King 

of saints. Who shall not fear thee L : and 
glorify thy name?' for thou art holy: for all 
nations shall come and worship before thee: for 
thy judgments are made -: " Rev. 15:2-4. 

In our stn the open b 

the vail of the temple rent in twain, because 
Jesus the high priest of ourprofession had made 
the offering once for all. 



114 SONG OF VICTORY. 



The vail between the holy place and the 
holy of holies is removed because men are to 
become priests unto God. and offer their whole 
or complete offering on the altar. The court 
outside has been united to the undivided build- 
ing of God, by placing in it a simile of the death 
of Christ, (baptism into his death) by faith in 
the death and priesthood of Christ, and in 
penitance and confession of sin and renunciation 
of former life, he brings himself and his all, and 
lays it all on the altar of Christ's service in the 
new heaven and the new earth, the now ever- 
lasting and holy temple of God. 

We have seen confusion reign almost 
supreme in court, as to what the order estab- 
lished in it was for, to us an indefinite period. 
Baptism, faith, repentance, infantile regenera- 
tion, rising in an assembly and giving your 
name on the church roll, have all been matters 
of dispute, and even church government has 
been the occasion of such strife among modern 
builders as to dot the earth all over with oppos- 
ing temples of worship and education, and 
creating in the human mind a dense fog of 
confusion. 

But the foundation stands sure in the record 
of the two witnesses. The eternal city (new 
heaven and new earth) have been measured and 
them that worship therein. And though they 
take on sackcloth over the confusion of Babylon 



SONG OF VICTORY. 115 

and her false reign in the earth, her foundation 
is just as perfect, her streets just as clean, her 
gates just as straight, and citizens just as single 
minded, as when the building sprung into its 
cubic beauty at Jesusalem A. D. 33. If one gate 
were left out it dishonors its builder, and unfits 
it to be a perfect heaven and earth; but thank 
God even Gentile treading, under the instigation 
of Satan cannot change it. 

The writer has seen the City of Washington 
from the top of its famous monument. Its 
streets are clean and its stuctures beautiful. 
The work done in her temples characteristic 
and distinguished among all the nations of the 
earth, but its work is imperfect. It is subject 
to constant change and modification. 

If the rule that was inaugurated there a 
century ago had been a perfect rule, removing 
from its citizens all motive for a personal mo- 
nopoly of its blessings, because it could provide 
abundantly for all, and the sole ambition of each 
had been turned to, and employed for, the phys- 
ical, intellectual, moral and spiritual growth of 
all its people; if all that would in any way op- 
erate adversely to all these shut out of its lim- 
its; if added to this the spirit of new life pervad- 
ed the city, in the ground it occupied, in the air 
it breathed, decay had been arrested, inherited 
disease become almost invisible. 



1.16 SONG OF VICTORY. 



If in its citizens the power of selfcontrol had 
been recovered to that extent, that each individ- 
ual was a new and living example of faith puri- 
ty and loving kindness, the brow of manhood 
no longer wore the trace ofcarenorthe frown 
of anger, but the eye was lustrous with the light 
of love and beneficence. 

No uncertainty, no discord, no questioning; 
all was order; the very soul of praise and pray- 
er on every tongue. 

Its citizens go out to the neighboring cities 
with a copy of the law and order in Washing- 
ton, attended by the same spirit that had been 
the inspiration of the new civilization there. 

Would there be any thing divine and glori- 
ous in such a mission? Would it do to compare 
Washington and it people to a sea of glass in 
contrast with the other cities of the world? 
Would her light be like a stone, most precious? 
Would Washington be a new city? Would it 
be the wonder of the world? And if its order 
and conditions extended throughout the limits 
of the United States, would it be glorious in the 
eyes of all the world? 

My critic may interpose that my illustra- 
tion is not applicable because it is not feasible. 
We answer that the history of the United States 
with all the corruption it has fostered, is to day 
a revelation and a wonder the world over, and 
until the foundation at Jerusalem has had a like 



SONG OF VICTORY. 117 

trial, no denial of its application can be enter- 
tained. If corrupt rule could attain universal 
empire at the instigation of Satan, work as 
much desolation as it did in Twelve Hundred 
and Sixty years. Who would dare to measure 
or limit the sceptre of the ever living Christ, ev- 
en for the period of One Hundred years? 

But to aid us in the stud\ T of the vision of 
John, we now change our standpoint of obser- 
vation, and inquire from God's standpoint. 
What would be his view of the relation. New 
York (or any other city) sustained to Wash- 
ington? 

In the latter city his love and infinite com- 
passion is reaping its fruit and his constant 
blessing is resting upon it. 

In the former human pride and the love of 
human glory is holding its millions under the 
iron grip of human greed and passion for gain 
and vain glory, in subjection to suffering, dis- 
ease, corruption and death. 

Would w^e expect the administration of an 
almighty soverign to be the same in character 
and effect in both cities? Certainly not. 

The two witnesses are just as faithful in 
admonition and warning to New York as they 
are in approbation and praise to Washington. 

We ask what distinguishes the people of the 
two cities respectively? 



118 SONG OF VICTORY. 



We answer: In Washington the people 
have gotten the victory over the beast, over his 
image, over his mark, and over the number of 
his name. Their experienced position and in- 
heritance justifies the use of the harp. Faithful- 
ness to our trust compels us to admit that in 
New York they remain under the dominion of 
them all. 

The author will give his own interpretation 
of the beast — his image — his number — and the 
number of his name. 

The beast represents Gentile dominion or rule, 
in its bitter, cruel persecution of Christianity, 
faith, and in the days of its greatest tyranny. 
The image, its modified form under Protestant 
influence and civilization, and his mark to re- 
present the tribute and act of allegiance separ- 
rate organizations under that rule, have im- 
posed upon man. 

The number of his name is indicative of 
false authorities which in the name of man 
invoked man's worship and service. The mark 
seems to be something passing from hand to 
hand, as appears from the marginal reading, 
and appears in the connection to be a condition 
of life. 

And when we remember that under this 
Gentile rule that even the very necessities of life 
cannot be procured, without adjusting the right 
to a profit upon their purchase and sale, and 



i 



SONG OF VICTORY. 119 

since the mark has in it the right to buy and 
sell, we know of no other interpretation that 
will do justice to the text. No one will deny 
that the pretext or plea of profit, is one of those 
elastic things that has in it great power to 
enrich and power to impoverish; to secure 
luxury and produce want and starvation; to 
lift into fame and power, and to cast down to 
lowest estate. 

With no iron rule to restrain it, the love of 
gain and the power it gives proves the most 
exacting corrupting thing on earth. So then 
the happy people in Washington have escaped 
all liability among themselves, to persecution — 
to the guild of a contaminated civilization. 

With numerous systems of false worship, to 
the insiduous corruption of covetousness and 
the danger that their hands will have to pecy 
tribute to any of the manifold devices of Satan 
either open or secret. 

Added to all this the eternal future before 
them is transparant as their present position 
like a sea of glass. 

But we must not forget that this sea of 
glass is mingled with fire — that this fire has 
been cast into the earth from the golden altar — 
and one of the four beasts gave to seven angels 
seven vials full of wrath 

Paul tells us that the wrath of God is 
revealed from heaven against all who hold the 



120 SONG OF VICTORY. 

truth iii unrighteousness, so we nr\st expect 
unjust false rule with its multiplied false sys- 
tems, all of which are now seen to be the result 
of the deceptions with which all the nations 
have been deceived, we must expect such mani- 
festation of judgment as will undeceive them. 

If the author could insert just here the 
calamity record of Babylom during the last 
forty years history of our advanced civilization, 
to say nothing of the threatening bold attitude 
of organized injustice, and its ever attendant 
fruit, suffering, disgrace and crime; I say just 
the calamity that has overtaken our struggle 
for advancement in civilization, it would be 
appaling; and when we state here that history 
never furnishes one case where they did occur 
only as a reproof and chastisement, or rebuke 
that they are shut out of the domain of a per- 
fect rule by a perfect obedience, and superceded 
by covenant blessing only, is a truth standing 
omnipotent in the record of the two witnesses. 

But to justify his position the author here 
inserts a brief and partial record in six cities in 
the United States, being famous tires in thirty- 
seven years: 

Place. Date. Loss. 

New York. Dec. 1835, $ 20,000,000. 

New York, Sept. 6, 1839, 10,000,000. 

Pittsburg, April, 10, 1845, 6,000,000. 

St. Louis, May 4, 1851, 1 1,000,000. 



SONG OF VICTORY. 121 



Portland, Me., July 4, 1866, 15,000,000. 

Chicago, Oct. 8-9,1866, 195,000,000. 

Boston, « Nov. 9, 1872, 73,000,000. 

If the record is fairly proportionate; record 
of waste and desolation by fire, our comparison 
between Washington and New York is applied 
to the vision in the text. We cannot conceive 
the depth nor extent of disaster that is con- 
stantly overtaking our earth in a state of evil. 
Every death is an evil, every sickbed, every 
hospital charge, every asylum inmate, every 
suicide, every defalcation, every robbery, ever}^ 
assassination, every levy of men and means for 
war only helps on the work of devastation; but 
no claim but that of infidelity believes that it 
will go on forever; and since God was manifest 
in Christ the world is waiting for his redemp- 
tion. Until all order and work in the earth, is 
in harmony with the divine order and work, the 
sea of glass is mingled with the sea of fire. 

"And after these things I saw another angel 
come down from heaven having great power. 

"And the earth was lightened with his glory.; 
and he cried mightily with a strong voice say- 
ing; Babylon the great is fallen, and is become 
the habitation of devils, and the hold of every 
foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and 
hateful bird. 

"For all nations have drunk of the wine of 
the wrath of her fornication. And the kings of 



122 SONG OF VICTORY. 



the earth have committed fornication with her, 
and the merchants of the earth have waxed 
rich through the abundance of her delicacies: 
And I heard a voice from heaven saying; come 
out of her my people that ye be not partakers 
of her sins and that yereceive not of her plagues 
for her sins have reached unto heaven and God 
hath remembered her iniquities." Rev. 18; 1-5. 

If we could concentrate the unbiased tele- 
scope of enlightened reason, upon the corrupted, 
depraved and degrading side of the present 
system of rule and custom in the earth, it could, 
and would, faithfully apply to the enlightened 
mind, this part of the vision of John. 

When we behold the highest type of man- 
hood in state, in church, in commerce, in all 
departments of a proud civilization, bowing 
down — many under protest — to this juggernaut 
of evil, with its mighty body of corruption 
eating like a canker at the vitals of purity, faith 
and piety, 'cropping out in every movement of 
enterprise and in every domain of charitv; it 
would not take long to sit in judgment upon it, 
and decide whether it was a fit instrument for 
the emancipation of man. 

Mark you it is not the men, it is fhe instru- 
ment the rule described . Tt is because good people 
are in it and under it that the voice from heaven 
entreats them to come out of her. 



SONG OF VICTORY. 123 

Alan has been enlightened with regard to 
its character, and are now informed that she is 
fallen out s of the province of divine favor and 
that to get out of the range of her calamities 
and plagues they must come out of her. 

When a ship at sea becomes so weakened by 
decay that she will no longer bear the strain of 
her machinery, and whenever she encounters a 
gale is liable to become a wreck, when she has 
all her crew at work trying to repair and bouy 
her; and at last when about to go to pieces 
from her own weakness and decay, a ship lays 
by massive and strong, made of material that 
never can decay, and fitted with machinery that 
never can get out of order, and weather proof 
construction; and the master of the noble craft 
says to the endangered crew: I have built this 
vessel specially for you come and bring all your 
valuable store on board, and the vessel is 
y r ours. 

The longer it proudly rides the stronger it 
becomes. Would it not be ingratitude and in- 
sensibility to the greatest peril; to stick to the 
old vessel? 

The history of the world shows that man 
cannot in his weakness construct a law or rule 
of life independent of devine wisdom, that will 
exempt from disaster nor redeem him from suf- 
fering and death: but the fact confrontes this 
-enlightened religious age, that Jesus Christ did es- 



124 SONG OF VICTORY. 



tablish a foundation for man to build upon r 
that furnishes a perfect rule and a perfect order r 
and only enthroned corrupted human abition 
has trodden under foot. 

The limit of this lecture will not permit the 
author to insert the entire chapter, but he in- 
vites the reader to read the latter part. 

We call attention to the fact that the judge- 
ment is not executed upon the people, nor upon 
the wealth itself, but upon a city which in con- 
trast with the New Jerusalem represents a rule 
or system. Hence kings, merchants, heads of 
commerce, shipowners combinations for gain, 
are the mourners at her scene of the judgement 
and overthrow. 

The merchants weep because no manbuyeth 
his merchandise any more. May we not reason 
that some order, custom, or law, has found 
sway and acceptance by the people that 
obivates, and removes their power to corrupt, 
and to prevent unrestrained human ambition 
from ascending to unsafe rule and power, as 
well as to make available to all the people the 
blessings, provided by a bountiful creator. 

The city was given a name "Mystery 
Babylon the Great, " the mother of abomina- 
tions in the earth; and in profane as well as in- 
spired history, whenever unrestrained human 
ambition dictated man's estate in anything, 



SONG OF VICTORY. 125 

pertaing to life or its blessings, its own injus- 
tice has wrought its overthrow. 

And with the sceptre of Jesus with its iron 
rule of*complete submission to eternal equity, and 
benificience, of man with man, it could not 
stand forever and be the sceptre for all time, 
and for every clime. 

The vision of John found in this "Mystery" 
the blood of all that were slain in the earth. 
As a woman her offspring has been billions of 
earth who have inherited her nature and have liv- 
edin her bondage her exactions and tyrany, have 
paid the wages of the sin of her service, and 
have gone down unto death. 

With a sense of relief the author turns to a 
more pleasing sight in the vision of John. It is 
recorded in the nineteenth chapter: 

ki And I heard as it were the voice of a great 
multitude, and as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of mighty thundering, saying; 
Alleluia for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." 
Rev. 19; 6. 

That the disappearance of Babylon and the 
leleaseof the people from her corruptions and 
exactions, should fill the earth with such rejoic- 
ing and thundering shouts of triumph, could 
not have been the case if the earth had not been 
lightened by the angel who announced her fall. 
But with the eyes of man open to see the 
cause of the corruption in her, and to see the 



126 SONG OF VICTORY. 



utter uselessness of it in the light of the divine 
sceptre, it causes earth to rebound with re- 
joicing. 

The eternal principle of joint heirship which 
existed in Father Son and Holy Spirit, in the 
creation of the universe and in the redemption 
of man, and extended to man by the sceptre of 
Christ, opened the eyes of so many who are un- 
der the deceptions of Babylon, who have dis- 
covered that it was enough to be a joint heir in 
heaven and earth with the Lord Jesus Christ, 
that they leave the false basis at once; and the 
deception Babylon has imposed on the church 
and the nations melts away like the dew before 
the sun. And while it causes great rejoicing 
among believers, it causes great anger among 
the nations, and among the opulent worshipers 
of the God of this world. What a delusion the 
custom and drift of centuries can live upon and 
impose on humanity. 

What light is here shed upon the latter dav 
history of the church and the world. What an 
era in the conquest of the kingdom of God in 
the earth. 

The new heaven and the new earth emeroe 
from the wilderness of obscurity. The prepara- 
tion of the bride for the approaching marriage 
of the Lamb is rapidly going on. 

She is casting off the garments colored by 
her long affiliation with the pomp and vanitv 



SONG OF VICTORY. 127 



of Babylon, to putting on their pure linen clean 
and white, for, the clean linen is the righteous- 
ness of the saints. 

The mists of ages has cleared away uncer- 
tainty, enquiry, and doubt has given place to 
faith, division and strife, to unity and coopera- 
tion, wisdom, labor and enterprise are sancti- 
fied by the holy tie of a pure brotherhood, and 
the gifts of the blessed Spirit bear fruit in a 
higher, purer, stronger life. 

One glance at an eror which has wonderful- 
ly mistified the study of the book of Revelation, 
in fact the whole bible, must close this lecture; 
that the earth renewed, purified, and the curse 
removed, was not to be the eternal abode of 
man. Whereas to the reverse of this prevailing 
idea, the scene of the entire conflict between 
good and evil, life and death, light and dark- 
ness, injustice and righteousness, relates to the 
earth as the resting place of the Tabernacle of 
God, and the restoration of man to uninterrupt- 
ed communion with God through it. 

When man has become completely invested 
with the divine nature which is love, such an 
affinity with that nature in God and in man as 
lifts him beyond temptation from evil. His 
dominion in the earth is regained, and not even 
the shadow of a cloud comes between man and 
his God. 



128 SONG OF VICTORY. 

The darkest side, the view of this problem 
of eviil and all its destructive consequences 
presents, is the fact that the great and good are 
alike putting all the wine of their love, faith, 
and prayers, into this massive mixture of dis- 
cord, this mighty monster of evil Babylon, 
which has swallowed up the protests— the lives 
—the prayers— the sufferings of her millions — 
and exults with glee in her unholly triumph. 

In the name of the risen Christ, we ask how 
can this unholly affiliation go on and defilement 
be prevented? What about the young and the 
weak? What about the light of the church? Is 
it like the light of a city set upon a hill? But 
light is dawning, time is passsing and Jesus 
lives. 









The Tabernacle Restored, 

LECTURE SEVEN. 

''And I saw heaven opened and behold a 
white horse; and he that sat upon him was 
called faithful and true, and in righteousness 
doth he judge and make war. His eyes are as 
a flame of fire, and on his head were many 
crowds, and he had a name written that no 
man knew but he himself. He was clothed in a 
vesture dipped in blood, and his name is called 
the Word of God, and the armies which are in 
heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed 
in fine linen white and clean. " Rev. 19:11-14. 

When heaven opens at this point in proph- 
ecy it discloses wonderful activity. 

The lease given Gentile dominion in the 
prophetic record has now expired and the right 
of universal conquest is accorded the Prince of 
the Kings of the earth; and the armies of 
heaven wait no longer. 



130 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 



It has never in the light of history been the 
plan of Cjod to make war indiscriminately. 
While the world is under the dictation and 
deceptive influence of Babylon heaven has not a 
very large army in the earth, and what it has 
are not in a condition to make the best of 
soldiers; but since Babylon's false light has been 
extinguished and her corrupt systems brought 
under the ban by the light of a new kingdom, a 
mighty host rally under the standard of him 
who wears the vesture dipped in blood. 

We may infer that these soldiers are clothed 
in seamless robes of white, constructed like the 
<me Jesus wore to the cross, indicating that in 
their natures there was a perfect union of the 
hum&n and divine, and that His sceptre would 
produce the same result in all those who were 
to ride upon white horses with him to the 
conquest. 

When the seals were broken John had seen a 
white horse with this same rider with a single 
crown and with a bow going forth to conquer; 
but the opening of the other seals discloses 
horses of different colors, who in the vision 
represent the claims of the various achieve- 
ments of the world powers by worldly policy. 

The red horse the achievement of war; the 
black horse the achievement of commerce; the 
pale horse the power of persecution as a means 
of conquest. Rev. 6:4-8. 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 131 



All these policies exhibited by world powers 
set aside the great and beneficient purpose and 
plan of a world's redeemer, and seem wholly 
unconscious of the fact, that they are treading 
under foot the one institution that can redeem 
and save men. 

The rider upon the white horse in the vision 
before us, is called faithful and true,, and the 
conquest he is making is in the interest of right- 
eousness, justice and judgment. 

He never has cast any false light upon the 
character of his sceptre. What it revealed as 
righteousness it will always demand and en- 
force. His own life had shed its lustre upon the 
righteousness he exemplified, and it robbed 
disease, sin and death of their power, and 
brought heaven and earth together in perfect 
reconciliation and harmony. 

But the enemy of God and man had not yet 
exhausted all his resources as an opposing 
power. 

His last resort seems to have been to clothe 
his rule with a divided robe of respect for Christ 
and the Devil; to use Christ's name for a pass 
word and their own to w r ear the glory. For 
Babylon said: "Behold I sit a queen, and am no 
widow, and shall see no sorrow;" but the angel 
said: "As much as she has glorified herself, and 
lived deliciously, so much sorrow give her." 



132 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 






The author would courteously ask if the 
prophecy just quoted does not clearly describe 
the opulent boast of the nations today, and are 
they not all holding in their lustful embrace evils 
world wide, and age corrupting? 

Does not covetousness pave the way from 
the humblest life to the dome of justice, and 
close the ear to its cry? 

That which ministers more to the carnality 
and depravity of man than to his recovery from 
both, can never be the instrument under God of 
man's redemption from evil 

It must be an institution that changes man's 
relation to the law of heredity, and have that 
law minister to the renovation and reconstruc- 
tion of the heart and mind, before the down- 
ward trend of society can be reversed. 

No institution, whether church or state, 
that leaves man more exposed to evil in all its 
forms, than to good, can ever be the instrument 
of man's recovery and salvation. If saved, it 
must be in spite of them and not by or through 
them. 

Our relation to the vision before us locates 
our duty on this side of Babylon's fall. God's 
people are in her; your children and mine are in 
her; her vices are staining our garments and 
poisoning our lives and theirs. 

What is the state of our hearts toward the 
two sceptres? Will we stand on the sea of glass 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 133 

with the harps of God in our hands, or with 
those who stand afar off from her desolation, 
and casi dust on our heads while she is being 
consumed? 

This age has produced some anomalies in 
the light of the apostolic record. In recent 
attempts to build anew on the divine founda- 
tion men have even gone back of it in their 
attempt to reform the church; but it seems to 
have escaped all these reformers that it takes 
both the spiritual and earthly order to consti- 
tute the true tabernncle of God. Like their 
predecessors their structures stand like a kind 
of religious leanto to Babylon, and the beauty, 
power and completeness of the divine model is 
wanting. The spiritual must include the natural 
in order to have the natural become spiritual. 

The confusion and weakness apparent in all 
our modern institutions both religious and 
secular is due to our failure to see that in God's 
plan as applied by Christ there is perfect har- 
mony, unity, and spirituality in both the 
spiritual and the natural or earthly order of 
Christ's kingdom. 

If it were not so it would be impossible to 
unite the two natures into a perfect unity and 
harmony on the same foundation. 

The robe of Christ's righteousness was seam- 
lesss and woven that way from top to bottom, 
but the garments woven by modern systems 



134 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 



onlv 2fO halfwav round us and onlv cover the 
spiritual side of our natures, and the iron rule 
in its application to the exposed side of 
human nature is lost, Spiritual life and power 
cannot pervade that part of life which is not 
under spiritual control. In visions of armies of 
heaven all ride horses of the same color. No 
other color would represent the standard borne 
by this army — a pet feet righteousnes needs but 
one. 

The warrior leading the armies of heaven 
having on his head many crowns gives assur- 
ance to a suffering misguided and misruled 
world of the reform of all reforms. 

It will not be in the nature of a pitious ap- 
peal to the corrupt systems of men to draw 
back some of their deformities, and hide their 
beastly character out of a mock respect to the 
mere name of the great commander but the 
sword that goes out of his mouth will smite the 
nations with its standard of a perfect justice 
and righteousness. 

Nothing can be more smiting in its nature 
and effect than the iron rule of his sceptre as a 
leveler and adjuster, in removing the right of a 
vitiated, corrupted, human ambition to mono- 
poly of rule and possessions in the earth. 

When weighed in the light of either reason 
or justice such right possesses neither the ele- 
ment of true greatness nor benificence but 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 135 

relegates, to the individual the right to a 
despotism. Such a right stands squarely across 
God's purpose to elevate all men alike to be 
kings and priests unto God in the earth and its 
affairs. 

No man can exhibit the high and pure intent 
of his own will if every action of that will has 
to be exercised in deference to a will more viti- 
ated and biased than his own, but if the power 
that controls every human will and action turns 
all alike to a true standard of beneficence and 
keeps them all turned in that direction, who 
dare attempt to measure man's spiritual and 
moral growth or the sway and extent of his 
united and universal beneficence? 

That the standard revealed and applied by 
the Holy Spirit at Jerusalem, A. D. 33, estab- 
lished joint heirship in both spiritual and 
earthly blessings can neither be denied nor dis- 
proved, and until that law is restored in his 
kingdom in the earth, the spiritual administra- 
tion must suffer for w r ant of the cooperation of 
its earthly order in the advancement of His 
kingdom. 

To the optimist the scene is inspiring. The 
horses of other colors with the war cry of their 
riders calling attention to the achievements of 
war, commerce, subjugation and persecution as 
paving the way for man's progress, are all 
eclipsed by the righteous splendor and heavenly 



136 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED, 

purpose of the army of Jesus. How quickly the 
monster bubble of vain glory explodes when 
pierced by the perfect sword of eternal truth. 

It will be humiliating indeed to the self- 
installed leaders, potentates and benefactors of 
the human race, to learn that the lowly Nazer- 
ene gave the world an institution that provided 
abundantly, not only for man's earthly wants, 
but for his recovery from sin and death, without 
all the sacrifice of blood, suffering and treasure 
the world has offered on the altar of human 
ambition. 

All the achievements of this unbridled am- 
bition has its vast cortege of suffering, toiling, 
weeping mourners to whose oppressed spirits 
neither progress nor victory brings relief or 
laurels. 

It has been the comfort and the boast of the 
Christian workers of the present age that they 
could go back to that memorable Pentecost for 
spiritual inspiration and promise; but their eyes 
seem to be closed to another feature of that 
event just as dear to our risen Lord, as that the 
spirit then came in His name. 

It is the fact that that spirit brought all 
that believed together onto one foundation. It 
brought their possessions and interests with 
them into one common joint heirship, and in 
them exemplified that righteoushess and fellow- 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED 137 



ship, the work of Christ made possible among 
men. 

Never before since the fall had heaven and 
earth witnessed such a scene, such a unity of, 
and such a blending together of heavenly and 
earthly interests. It is well to remember that 
the interest of the ages past and future concen- 
trate in the city of the great King. To its shrine 
we go to find the cross, the tomb, the resurec- 
tion and the ascension. To its shrine we must 
go to find the descent of the spirit, the new 
Jerusalem, and the employment of apostles and 
prophets in placing men squarely upon its new 
but perfect and eternal foundation. 

Its advent was the culminating event of the 
ages, and the perfection of its work cannot be 
excelled by any power, human or divine. 

Its sceptre brought mercy, even to the 
murderers of the guiltless Christ, and crowned 
alike the lowly and the humble, the mighty and 
the noble with infinite grace and peace. 

It gave to dying mortals the earnest of 
victory over weakness, blindness, suffering and 
death. It was what the world needed then, 
what it needs now, and will have again. 

The army we have seen go forth in the 
vision, gives assurance of world-wide victory. 

The marriage of the Lamb bears witness 
that the bride has made herself readv and the 



138 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 

work of regenerating the earth has been resum- 
ed, and the tabernacle of God is being enlarged. 

What a privilege to be invited to the holy 
marriage of the perfect Christ. 

What motive for a more thorough inspec- 
tion of the wedding garment, its construction 
and the manner of putting it on. 

These garments are constructed by the 
ministry and affect upon human nature, of that 
righteousness prescribed by the Holy Spirit, and 
which restores man to the fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man. 

It ought to be clear to us that the initial 
step in putting on this righteousness, would be 
to come squarely on to that divine foundation 
that provided for man's perfection in both 
relations. 

The army seen in the vision will exhibit 
clearly the distinction between the divine insti- 
tution with its power to restore man to right- 
eousness and favor with God, and tha world's 
institutions, mixed through and through with 
weakness, error and evil, always learning but 
never able to come to the knowledge of the 
truth. Such has always been the character of 
all institutions founded upon principles that 
admitted of a compromise between Christ and 
the Devil. They could never carry their full 
influence in favor of either and hence never are 
able to decide man's destiny either good or bad. 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 139 

This conflict will settle forever the claims of 
all rival rulerships and rival systems with which 
the world has been blessed and cursed by the 
triumph of that institution that creates and 
enforces perfect and everlasting righteousness 
among men, it will solve the problem of prob- 
lems, how man can be come just with God, by 
demonstrating clearly that at the same time 
he must become just with his fellow man. 

It is significant that the last prophetic vis- 
ion of God's open book closes by condensing 
into one institution the elements and forces of 
oposing and rival counterfeit, corrupt systems, 
and exhibits its true character in contrast with 
the one perfect and eternal institution of the 
king of kings, and lord of lords. 

This combination of opposing rival counter- 
feit systems, is given a name significant of its 
true history and character "Mystery Babylon 
the great," the mother of abominations in the 
earth. 

From the mount of his observation the 
revelator sees clearly the ravages of blood, crime 
and desolation she has left in the wake of her 
cruel and heartless career. 

If this enlightened age would study closely 
the light this prophecy gives, by contrasting 
the true nature, character, and fate, ofthis mys- 
tic Babylon with the righteous, glory, grandeur 
and eternal duration of the New Jerusalem, it 



140 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 

might exercise a God given discretion by bring- 
ing the honor and glory of the nations out of 
the one into the other, but history shows the 
use a world loving age will make of that dis- 
cretionary power is to wait until a righteous 
judgment sweeps away the sandy foundations 
of their shaky structures, and leaves their wor- 
ship to weep and lament their fall. 

No more vivid, impressive, and complete ex- 
hibition of the grouping together and righteous 
disclosure of corrupt systems, for their final 
judgement and overthrow could be given than 
is here portrayed for man's benefit. 

No granduer more sublime or victorious 
vindication could be given God's plan for reinstat- 
ing man in righteousness and reclaiming the 
earth from the curse than is given in the final 
triumph of that institution in which God 
dwells with man. 

The book of Revelation would be unsuited 
to its place in the inspired record if it did not 
contain the prophetic record of the final issue of 
God's great plan which we find steadily and 
progressively unfolding through the entire bible. 

It is instructive and interesting to note that 
the bible begins with the creation, the fall, the 
curse and the penalty death; and ends with the 
curse removed, man restored, the earth renewed, 
the dwelling place of God with man, the river 
of life flowing, and evil shut out of that institu- 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 14-1 

tion in which man holds communion with God 

and the Lamb. 

« 

It is of vast importance to know to which 
of these great terminal decisive events this age 
with its systems and civilization stands most 
clearly responsible and accountable. Most 
assuredly the final and decisive contest of the 
great plan may force upon any generation the 
decisive and overwhelming judgments that will 
bring God's people out of Babylon and carry 
with her all her corruptions into that abyss to 
which this last prophecy consigns her. 

The economy of God's plan as revealed in 
this prophecy exhibits Babylon's fall and over- 
throw as occuring on this side of the first 
resurrection and the marriage of the Lamb. 

In order to enlist in the armies of heaven, 
God's people must come out of her; there is no 
other w r ay of escape from her sins and her 
plagues. 

In order to show conclusively that the pres- 
ent systems belong to Babylon, we must recur 
to the opening of the seals as recorded in 
chapter six, 

At the opening of the first seal John saw 
a white horse, and he that sat on him had a 
bow, and a crown was given him and he went 
forth to conquer; which shows Christ with his 
sceptre of righteousness confronting corrupt 
systems. 



142 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 

The opening of the second seal reveals a red 
horse, and the mission was to take peace from 
the earth, and to instigate war. 

The opening of the third seal reveals a black 
horse, whose rider has a pair of balances in his 
hand, and a voice was heard in the midst of the 
four beasts; a measure of wheat for a penny 
and see thou hurt not the oil and wine. 

The opening of the fourth seal sends forth a 
pale horse and the name of his rider was death; 
death and hell followed him — all the world 
knows his cruel reign of persecution. 

We have here arrayed in opposition to the 
white horse and his rider, three other policies or 
systems that would command the allegiance 
and service of men, and in their nature and 
extent be rivals of the divine sceptre. 

The war policy as a means of conquest, 
which even now claims recognition as a mission- 
ary force. 

The commercial policy as an achievement of 
greed for gain, pride and indulgence in luxury. 
Its prophetic cry is being repeated today — hurt 
not the oil and the wine even if they could claim 
as many victims as war and persecution com- 
bined, to our commerce — they are a necessity in 
our civilization. They cannot be hurt without 
infringing upon our rights and taking away our 
liberties. 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 143 

It does not seem possible that men can be 
soldiers tinder any of these colors and at the 
same time wear a uniform composed of seamless 
robes of white and ride upon white 
horses with Christ to conquest. 

The policy of the kingdom of Christ is a 
clean unmixed policy and its war cry is the 
restoration of a perfect righteousness in the 
earth, and all who pray "Thy kingdom come" 
should lose no time in renouncing their respon- 
sibility for the mixed and misleading policies of 
this mystic Babylon, and by coming under the 
perfect righteousness of the sceptre of Christ 
take the seamless robe of white worn by the 
armies of heaven. As an overwhelming argu- 
ment in favor of speediW coming out we suggest 
the fact, that in this bold and faithful prophecy, 
Babylon, the mother of abominations in the 
earth, goes out of sight in the abyss, while the 
kingdom of Christ reign forever, (ages on 
ages.) 

God grant this little book, imperfect as it 
may be, may in a small degree fill the mission of 
the angel who lightened the earth with his 
glory, and who cried mightily with a strong 
voice; "Babylon is fallen, come out of her my 
people that ye be not partakers of her sins and 
that ye receive not of her plagues." 

A brief glimpse at the glorious institution 
w r e have tried to trace from its advent A. D. 33, 



144 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 

to its triumph, must close this our seventh and 
last lecture. 

In Rev. 21:9, the angel introduces it to the 
vision of John as the bride, the Lamb's wife. 
It is instructive to study the family record, for 
it is the record of the great family of God "who 
were born not of the blood, nor the will of the 
flesh, but of God." 

. This great family throng make up that 
glorious institution against which the gates of 
death opened so wide by the beastly opposition 
could not prevail. Thank God, the nations of 
them that are saved walk in the light of it and 
the kings of the earth bring their honor and 
glory into it. 

It needs no temple, for the Lord God and 
the Lamb are the temple of it. 

In its twelve foundations are the names of 
the twelve apostles of the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. 

In its gates are the names of the twelve 
tribes of the Children of Israel. Through the 
twelve tribes the gates of God's eternal plan 
opened to all Israel and to all nations. Through 
the twelve apostles were laid its twelve founda- 
tions for all nations and for all time. 

From the throne of God and the Lamb 
within it, flows the river of life, with the tree 
of life on either side, bearing their twelve man- 
ner of fruits. 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 145 

The tree of life on either side of the river are 
fit emblems of the two Olive trees standing 
before the God of all the earth called God's two 
witnesses, containing the bread of life, and from 
between their two dispensations at Jerusalem. 
A. D. 33, flows the blessed dispensation of the 
Holy Spirit which becomes the water of life to 
all who will take of it freely. 

This divine institution is God's eternal plan, 
revealed to man bv His word, executed bv 
Christ and applied to man by the Holy Spirit. 
It contains provisions for bringing before the 
bar of Christ's perfect judgment all men and all 
nations. 

The perfect standard of His sceptre must,* 
and will, be accepted or rejected by every human 
being. Neither Satan, sin nor death prevents 
the mediation of the perfect Christ from settling 
every man's personal account with the Creator. 

The tvvo resurrections as exemplified at the 
first advent, the hrst at the resurrection of 
Christ when many of the saints arose and ap- 
peared to many in the city, and the general 
resurrection as pefigured in the resurrection of 
Lazarus, the widow's son, and many other 
cases, at least by inference, are proof positive 
that the great executive of God's plan holds the 
key to both man's present and future existence, 
and that sooner or later all must come under 



146 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 

His sceptre or incur the penalty of the second 
death. 

This last prophetic description of God's 
institution shows vividly its power to separate 
good from evil, truth from error, and the light- 
eous from the wicked, and is proof positive that 
it will fulfill its mission and the separation take 
place. 

A forced separation is what God deplores, 
and what man should avoid. The world should 
learn wisdom both from its age and from 
prophecy. Upon us now rests a responsibility 
as high as heaven and as broad and great as 
the welfare of this generation in which we live, 
to heed God's prophetic voice of warning and 
quickly reinstate the sceptre of Jesus. 

The rival attitude of the world powers now 
makes one prophecy at least suggestive that its 
fulfillment might precipitate the world into 
trouble and confusion world wide and heart 
rending. It reads; "And one of the four beasts 
gave unto the seven angels seven golden vials of 
the wrath of God that liveth forever and for- 
ever." Rev. 25:7. National rivalry is a poor 
foundation for rest. 

As we have found the divine institution, 
there is a wide distinction between that within 
and that which is without, and without this 
distinction it could not exist in its perfection, its 
power and its glory. 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 147 



The two classes most vitally interested and 
affected are both present to witness the affect of 
the separation of one class from the other, 
which is necessary in order to the safety of 
those within, and to place them in a right posi- 
tion to influence those outside to abandon that 
which shuts them out. 

Those without do not have even a represen- 
tative voice in regulating the affairs within this 
happy and righteous institution, and even 
money could not procure such a privilege. No 
doubt Satan would rejoice if it would admit 
both him and his angels; and no donbt those 
within are equally happy that neither can gain 
any access to their pure and holy fellowship. 

In Rev. 13:6-8 and in 17:12-14 the prophecy 
carries the institution founded at Jerusalem, A. 
D. 33, into subjugation by the world powers at 
the instigation of Satan, and out of its appar- 
ent defeat to its final triumph and glory under 
Christ. 

Its identity at its founding and at its 
triumph is as clear as prophecy could make it. 
Its being called "the New 7 Jerusalem" connects 
its advent, intervening history, and triumph 
with the typical city of the great King. 

In both its advent and in its triumph the 
Spirit and the Bride say come — and whosoever 
would might take of the water of life freely. Its 



148 THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 



streets were paved with the gold of its divine 
nature, and those who walked them inherited 
its divine purity and power. 

Those who obeyed its commandments, 
entered its gates and partook of its tree of life r 
and drank of its great river of life. 

The leaves of its two Olive trees on eithei 
side are ample enough for the healing of all the 
nations and its foundations broad enough to 
receive all their honor and glory. 

May the graphic picture given it by the last 
of God's prophets, impress the hearts of all the 
readers of this little book wkh the inevitable 
conclusions to be drawn from its advent, history 
and triumph. 

It is God's holy institution in which he 
meets and dwells eternally with man. 

In it there is salvation from wrath — the 
curse — from Satan — sin and the second death. 
Out of it there is not a shadow of a promise of 
sa 1 ^tion from either. 

God has placed at the option of men and 
nations to build on its eternal indestructable 
foundation or upon the sand of humanism and 
world worship. 

Joyfully would the author meet those who 
like Simeon of old are waiting for the kingdom 
of God; but until he can find upon the earth its 
pure holy and single hearted fellowship must 



THE TABERNACLE RESTORED. 149 

live in the consciousness that he walks the 
streets of this mystic Babylon a pilgrim and a 
stranger in the earth. 



Note. 

All who, after reading this volumn, feel that 
Christ would be honored, and the world be 
blessed by the restoration of his own institution 
as founded by His appostles are invited to 
their name, address and any suggestion they 
wish to make on a card, addressed to Armour, 
South Dakota. 

E. R. ALLYN, 

Author. 






THE 

OVERCOMING 
KINGDOM. 



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